This is an interventional research with care staffs in several traditional nursing homes for the elderly, in order to evaluate the environmental improvement and the process by applying the concept of the Professional Environmental Assessment Protocol (PEAP: Weisman et al. 1996). The progress and the achievement for creating better environment varied because of different engagement of practicing and managing care. Positive and negative factors of environmental improvement and the staff consciousness were clarified in each facility by several research methods, such as the questionnaire method to all staffs, behavioral mappings, regularly photographing records at fixed places, and the PEAP. As the results, the dominating organizational factors were categorized in three patterns for creating better care environment, 1) building common recognition of the goal among care staffs and director, 2) continuing the practicing of improvement, 3) challenging process for creating the small-scale environment.

One of the most significant European interventions for biodiversity protection is the Natura 2000 Network of protected sites, where natural habitats are to be preserved in order to rescue endangered species from extinction. Aiming at long term sustainability, biodiversity protection cannot be achieved without the transformation of previous local practices of land and water use, hunting habits and infra-structure construction. Therefore the legal tools of Natura 2000 now intervene in an everyday bases in the habits of the communities located in the sites, requesting from them the initiation and maintenance of non activist behaviours of the public sphere (Stern, 2000). This situation brings to the fore the dilemmas and difficulties of articulating individual with common interests and of imposing top-down change in a context where public participation is simultaneously valued. The pressures for change were therefore followed by both acceptance and opposition from local groups and actors, and the Press has a relevant role to play here. Our presentation will focus on how the press brings these discussions and reactions to the public sphere, It will depart from an analysis of the Portuguese press over a 9-year period (1998-2007). All articles of four national and four regional newspapers from the Southern part of Portugal referring to Natura 2000 were collected. We examined the different meanings that are associated to nature conservation and biodiversity protection, giving special attention to how the issue of the legitimacy of change imposed through legal tools was interpreted. The comparison between regional and national papers shows how national papers accentuating the common benefits and the positive aspects of the legal measures regarding biodiversity protection while regional papers accentuate instead the practical difficulties of translating legal norms to particular cases, and focus on the difficulties encountered in particular contexts. We will explore other dimensions differentiating the papers, and finally the discussion will explore how the differences found can be useful for furthering our comprehension of what sustains or undermines non activist behaviours of the public sphere, and a better understanding of the power of the media for interfering with social change in the ecological domain.

Over the last twenty-five years our research group, under the direction and coordination of the first author, has collected a great deal of iconographic documentation on incongruous architectural solutions, also performing some experimental studies in this regard. We started by considering the case of Medieval or Renaissance leaning buildings, such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Garisenda Tower in Bologna or the typical two-storey Tilted House of Bomarzo. Several further examples and different kinds of architectural incongruity were examined, always from the psychological point of view, leading to a systematic classification and more appropriate scientific conclusions with respect to more obvious and generic treatises like the ones presented in recent volumes such as the validly illustrated ones by Jencks (1979), Papadakis (1994), Thiel-Siling (1999), Cattermole & Westwell (2007), which make distinctions on the basis of practical use, that is, residential, commercial, municipal and cultural buildings, etc.; or references to rationalisations of a philosophical kind (so-called “deconstructivism”). Our classification is based on the range of phenomenal qualities, which are well known in psychology after the contributions by Arnheim (1949), Metzger (1954, 1963), Bonaiuto (1965, 1988) and other specialists. Each quality is contradicted in each experience of architectural incongruity, with respect to traditions of regularity, order, symmetry, harmony and to preferences for right angles, vertical and horizontal planes, etc., that are aspects proposed and tacitly accepted for centuries, as dominant compositional rules: with certain exceptions becoming anomalies attracting tourist interest. Therefore, we examined cases of incongruity of position, shape, composition, size and colour. Among the psychological processes involved in the perception of these various incongruities, some particular aspects were studied: the emphatisation of the degree of conflict owing to the contrast with normal mental schemata; the attenuation of this contrast after using appropriate verbal explanations; a similar attenuation as a perceptual defence mechanism in the case of conflict overload; other processes also identified through systematic psychological research.

Forests are an important source of natural and environmental resources, and also a source of economic activity. Public attitudes towards the forests have rarely been studied, and this stufy focus on that topic aiming at: (a) describing the attitude towards the forest of the residents near the forest areas in Portugal, describing its socio-demographic correlates; (b) to test the hierarchic relationship between ecologic values, attitudes towards the forest and use of the forest, following the work of McFarlane and colleagues (e.g., McFarlane & Boxall, 2003); and (c) testing the moderating role of attitudinal ambivalence (Conner & Sparks, 2002) in the association between attitudes and behaviour related to the forests. A sample of residents living close to forests was collected in this study. The participants had low levels of education and were old, compared to the rest of the portuguese population. Results show that the general attitude towards the forest is quite positive, recognizing the positive environmental and economic impacts of the forests and supporting the expansion of the forest. In terms of the socio-demographic determinants, more positive attitudes were found among: the younger and more educated participants; the ones with higher levels of economic resources; people living in the North; the ones working in areas related to the forestry. To test the hierarchic model of values, attitudes and behaviour the mediation procedure proposed Baron & Kenny (1986) was used. Ecological values are associated with the use of the forest but this relationship is partially mediated by the attitude towards the forest. Finally, the role of attitudinal ambivalence was tested. Although the level of ambivalence was low, results show that the behaviour of ambivalent participants is inconsistently associated to attitudes. This study, with a national sample, assesses the positive attitude towards the forests in Portugal and stresses its determinants. The role of demographic variables, values and the link to behaviour is now more clear, as well as the role of ambivalence in the association to behaviour.

Economic transformations that occurred in the industrial period were for many cities a great challenge. These cities supported their growth by their marine commerce and their off shore areas were related to the nucleus that originated the city. With the decadence of this activity and the growth of central areas, the need to dislocate from off shore emerged, leading to its abandonment and degradation of the coast and nearby areas. Fortaleza, city of the Northeast of Brazil, has been through a similar process. Originated from its off shore calling and defensive culture, during the colonial period it was a place of extractivist exploitation by European navigators. During the Industrial period, it became a commercial city, focused on cotton exportation. From the transformations occurred in international trade, and also due to the densification of these spaces, during the 1960´s, the shore area commerce was removed. The industries and commercial establishments installed in the urban center provoked the underuse of what used to be the heart of the city, bringing a degradation that is still present. Because of this reality, many attempts to reactivate the area have been done, by the initiative of Governmental institutions to value the shore. This work proposes to analyze these several attempts of regeneration, having as base documental analysis, and testimonials of technicians and users of varied social segments, trying to detectate and evaluate the causes of these failures and proposing a reflection in order to subside the debates about current intervention proposals. It`s also possible to notice on the proposed interventions a common idea: prepare the city for tourism. However, the real life of the city is built in an everyday basis by its population, which attributes sense to the place. When the project has a difference sense from the one the user gives, it does not occur an emotional bond. The city then becomes a mixture of disconnected spaces without representation. In conclusion, we can say that the current debate caused by these interventions heats the discussion because, once more, the Government power acts in an arbitrary way, implementing, without consulting the community, actions that go against the technical studies that are made, since they are more interested in leaving landmarks than to undertake continuous deep actions which are more definitive and true to the city`s way of life in all its complexity.

Starting from the second half of the 20th century, the industrialization period which the western countries entered, caused a change in the production and transportation technologies and uselessness of these structures. These structures became useless and on the other hand arose as a serious problem with their locations at important sites of the cities which were growing and improving. Kocaeli is a city which has taken on a %22 load of Turkey’s industry, and is a city, weight of which became heavier because of the feature of being a transit passage which connects •stanbul to Anatolian. The city has become a place in which it is hard to live, adding on this the irregular and unplanned structuring which was applied until today. The main agenda topic of recent years for the protection and improvement of the environment in industrial cities is the determination of transformation models for industrial areas which got stuck in the city, have lost their economical importance and of which questioning has started to be made for their capacity of production and their logic. The transformation of industrial structures, sticking with their protection, which are no longer functional to new functions, is one of the typical topics of the third generation modernizing period which started 30 years ago and the concept of “industrial archeology” has come into existence with this period. Seka Paper Factory is regarding its scale, location, and its place in the memory of the city and citizens the most important which was earned for the city by considering “public benefits” as a result of the industrial transformation in our country and has the property of being the largest industrial transformation project/ park which serves to “industry archeology” regarding its scale.

Today, almost half of the world population lives in cities and this number will increase every year. In the future, mankind will for the largest part be urban. This will require a search for a new type of urbanity and urban culture in a globalised world. Still, anti-urban sentiments among politicians, nature conservationists and others are not unusual. We will have to reconsider this attitude and search for a new type of urbanity as a basis for living conditions for the majority of the world population. In this paper we will research how design can contribute to these type of urban developments that now take place in large parts of the world. For the future of urban development, which is primarily a global development, we have distinguished three key issues that form the core of the problem for urban development; the shortage of water, the increased demand for mobility, infrastructure and transport and the condition of health as a basis for the quality of life we strive for. The role of design is first of all to integrate these three key issues in plans for the future urban and regional development. Design can be seen as a unique way of bringing together different aspects in a unified whole. Secondly we see the role of design in creating conditions for living both economically and socially. Finally we see a role for design in the contribution to the contemporary culture in creating conditions for new experiences in the relation between nature and culture. The research approach is first of all literature research; what has been written on the state of the art on the relation between nature and culture? Secondly we want to use the design experience in Holland with the making of new landscapes and new towns in the developing a vision on the new form of urbanity we mentioned earlier and the concept of 'next nature'. As a conclusion we want to put forward a design approach on the basis of three levels of intervention. First of all the strategic level where water and the water system is the key issue. Secondly the structural level that will create conditions for economic and social development where infrastructure and mobility are the key issues. Finally, at the level of materialisation of form, health is the key issue. It makes use of strategy and conditions of the other levels of intervention. It is at this level where local and global meet in the creation of daily living environments for people.

Mixed, not single-purpose, land use, is the current city planning paradigm. Biospheres have been needed in urban areas for ecological sustainability and diversity, and for cultural and social diversity. Securing green spaces for non-human biospheres usually conflicts with human land use, but food cultivation creates green spaces for, and managed by, people. They are a kind of biosphere. Farm lots, which were always divided from the city, are being inserted in urban development projects or parks in Japan recently. The author investigated the historical relation between farm lands and cities, and the recent projects, and based on the results, shows that farming spaces in an urban area may give the urban environment new diversity, produce a new concept in practical land use planning and community improvement, and create a new urbanscape concept. These changes in consciousness will make urban planning and design more diverse and sustainable with a biosphere and with greater well-being.

Research on restorative environments has consistently shown a variety of healthy outcomes emerging from the contact with such settings. These benefits range from physical to psychological, thus underlying the importance of restorative settings for a more sustainable design of everyday environments. According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), the experience in those settings may help regain an effective cognitive functioning. ART postulates that the restorative potential of environments can be measured through the assessment of four components, namely being-away, fascination, extent, and compatibility. ART posits that the longer is the contact with a restorative environment, the deeper restoration is likely to take place. Accordingly, the processes leading to restoration were explored through a quasi-experimental study (N = 113) in which on-site experiences in restorative environments were considered. The evaluations of the restorative components of both a natural and a built/historical restorative environment, shown in pictures, were compared across three different experimental conditions: on-site in the same natural and built/historical environments shown in the pictures, and in a neutral setting. Results showed the importance of on-site experiences in promoting a potentially deeper restoration. In addition, slight but interesting differences in the restoration process occurring in natural and built/historical environments emerged. In particular, a key role of being-away in the perceived restorativeness of natural environments emerged; on the other hand, fascination seems to be fundamental in promoting restoration during experiences in built/historical settings. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed.

This piece of work intends to develop the fear of crime analysis and research tradition, by incorporating two important contributions. Firstly, it proposes an integrated structural model of fear of crime, which has been elaborated after exhaustive literature review. Secondly: this integrated model incorporates different variables linked to urban social identity and residential satisfaction, in order to understand its effect on personnel perceived insecurity. The model explains 41% of total variance in the perceived insecurity scale and states that previous experiences, personal profile and social representation of spaces become key variables to understand the emergence of insecurity feelings. This social representation of space is directly influenced by different social and environmental dimensions, such as perceived environmental quality, regular uses of the space, level of surveillance and social control, and, especially, urban social identity and residential satisfaction levels.

Researchers have adopted many different interventions to change people’s attitudes and behaviors regarding sustainability. There has been increasingly more attention for interventions aimed at internal motivation, as opposed to interventions aimed at external motivation such as incentives. One of these interventions aimed at internal motivation is the making of commitments. The general idea of this intervention is that when people make a commitment to engage in a certain behavior, they follow up on that commitment and this produces behavior change. While this idea seems promising, the results of the studies are mixed. In the current article we review environmental studies containing a commitment manipulation, and we investigate the possible social psychological underpinnings of the commitment process. By doing so we aim to clarify how commitment can be successful and what the optimal conditions are for it to produce the desired behavior change.

Conservation psychology is an emerging research area for environmental psychologists. Conservation psychology focuses on the reciprocal relationship between individuals and the natural environment. Much of the current work is aimed at understanding the psychological factors that are predictive of environmental attitudes and conservation behavior, as well as developing and testing effective strategies for promoting conservation. The proposed symposium includes four papers that fall under the broad heading of conservation psychology. In the first paper, Eike von Lindern and Hans-Joachim Mosler discuss the role of mental models in understand and promoting conservation. They present data from a sample of Swiss anglers in which they link mental models of the ecosystem with specific beliefs and behavioral intentions. In the second paper, Victor Corral-Verdugo and his colleagues discuss Affinity Toward Diversity as an important predictor of conservation behavior. Drawing on data from several samples, they highlight the ways in which this dispositional variable correlates in meaningful ways with a range of conservation-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. In the third paper, Florian Kaiser examines the potential changes in behavior that can result from changing attitudes. He presents new data challenging the traditional viewpoint that changing attitude will not lead to a corresponding change in behavior. In the final paper, Wesley Schultz discusses the role of social norms in persuading conservation behavior. He reports data from a series of studies with hotel guests in which norms-based messages were effective at promoting in-room conservation. Taken together, the four papers nicely represent the important contributions that psychologists can make in understanding and persuading conservation.

The choice of decoration and the personalization of the house has been associated with self-expression and personal identity but also with the enhancement of interpersonal relationships (e.g., Tognoli, 1987; Smith, 1994). A complementary set of studies has shown that consensual ideas about the residents emerge from photos of domestic spaces (Aragonés et al, 2005). The existence of a shared code about the meaning of the personalized spaces presumes that social norms sustain these evaluations. However, the concept of social norms assumes that it is created and shared by a social group (and not by others). In this study we used this theoretical background to show that the bedroom, as an expression of self, allows the inference of the occupant’s attributes. However, as we assume that social norms give consistency to this shared underlying code, we expect these norms to be specially shared by group members. 62 persons participated in this study, 27 being young university students (M=19.04) and 35 elderly from senior universities (M=74.11). Photos of 16 single bedrooms of young and old persons (8 of old persosn and 8 of young persons) were sellected as stimulus for this study, and exhibited to the participants in a PowerPoint presentation. After watching each bedroom, the participants answered some questions on the occupant of the room, namely their sex and age group.. Data analysis was based on the number of accurate responses concerning the age and sex of the occupants of the bedrooms. Young participants were more accurate in the identification of their group’s bedrooms, either in terms of age or in terms of gender. Conversely, older participants were more accurate in the identification of the sex and age of the occupants of rooms of their own age group. This study shows that the meaning of the personalization of the bedrooms are mainly understood inside the same age group. This result confirms previous research on the impression formation about the residents from photos of domestic spaces, but it also calls the attention to the existence and importance of shared social norms inside the same social group.

This paper reports findings of field research undertaken in collaboration with students and scholars from the Green Architecture Research Center of Xian University of Architecture and Technology. The focus of the project is the potential that exists for exploiting the abundant solar resources of Tibet in the development of modern urban and rural housing types while at the same time honoring the traditional Tibetan house form. In current design and research approaches at the GARC, the design of environmentally responsive vernacular building focuses on interventions that increase solar heat collection and circulation of heat throughout the dwelling space. These interventions primarily engage the structure of the dwelling and in the case of the yaodong cave dwellings, also may include the addition of a second floor to increase living space. The interventions alter the original ambiance and daylighting levels of the traditional single cavernous vaulted interior. The GARC interventions are consistent with an MIT study of passive solar interventions on different housing types in Beijing. All post-occupancy evaluations focus on comparative measures of fuel consumption after passive solar gain and air circulation is improved. What we see as missing from these studies is an evaluation of the impact these types of intervention have on the use of interior space. For example, the quality of life as affected by daylight levels within the spaces and on traditional routines and objects of daily living, the material culture as it has been passed down from generation to generation. Through light level analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, we provide insight to the way daylight levels affect current interior living conditions in Tibet. This data is used to test potential design interventions and predict impact on interior light quality with the goal of suggesting that both holistic and culturally responsive design solutions can result

This study aims to understand the characteristics of a successful waterfront design and suggests an appropriate environmentally friendly approach to the waterfront design for Busan’s Young-do islet in Korea. This research will provide the basic data to help raise the quality of citizen life on Young-do Islet by minimizing the environmental impact and by providing the considerations for the waterfront setting, where the natural and artificial environment can be seamlessly harmonized with the local residents. Literature reviews were researched to understand the definition and characteristics of waterfront settings and to analyze the successful foreign and domestic cases including seashore, riverside, and lake cities. As a second step, three representative waterfront areas in Busan city were visited and analyzed in terms of natural, social, cultural, economic, and environmental aspects. Third, the considerations for a waterfront setting were developed throughout the case analysis. Fourth, the specific site was selected, analyzed, and designed based on the consideration for a waterfront setting. As a result of literature reviews and case studies, the considerations for waterfront settings are as follows: 1)appropriateness of the site, which includes the allocation of the area for walking and other functions 2)spatial configuration for convenient vehicle traffic and easy circulation 3)borderline between the setting and other surrounding areas to protect users' privacy 4)harmony between natural and artificial environments 5)a unified image for building exteriors and other installations 6)use of environmentally friendly materials and color plans that consider the regional landscape 7)consideration for expansion of facilities regarding oceanic climate such as tidal waves and typhoons. The design was developed in the following steps: first, user needs and activities for space development were analyzed, such as a water friendly leisure zone to support local activities, a sightseeing zone for visitors, and a common relaxation zone for both; second, a “flowing” design concept related to organic form was developed considering the association with the surrounding nature and water. The organic form reflects the harmony with the landscape and symbolizes the organic connection between man and nature; third, idea sketches by both hand and 3-D computer drawing were repeated to specify the design image and form; fourth, circulation and zoning plans were conducted.

This study sets out to analyze the cases of urban housing for the elderly-what we call ‘silver housing’ in Asian countries - that were recently developed and marketed to the senior citizens in the upper and middle class. Several methodologies are applied to achieve these study goals. First, theoretical study was conducted through literature review. The cases of the housing for the elderly in the U.S., Japan, and Europe are also examined. Second, a case study is carried out by visiting the cases of Korea's housing for the elderly and gathering data from April to October 2007. The criteria of choosing the housing for the elderly for the study includes 180 households or more that were sold around October 2006 and 70% of sales and moving-in rates. Four cases are selected and analyzed in terms of location, building type, cost, a running system, spatial organization, facilities, and services. Also, the legal and institutional problems with the housing for the elderly that are currently marketed and operated are also identified. The investigation and analysis have led to the following results. First, seen from the perspective of residence and service, the urban nursing homes analyzed in the study turn out to provide high-grade residential facilities by arranging the living space efficiently and using high quality materials. However, their extremely expensive selling prices and monthly management fees are problematic, being attributed to the excessively luxurious mammoth facilities and reckless emulations of foreign cases. Secondly, the legal and institutional problems with the urban nursing homes are analyzed to suggest four directions in their development. 1) As for directions in law and policy, improvements are suggested with regard to the regulations of the time to apply for a facility permit at a senior citizen’s paid welfare housing,the government policies, and the capital adequacy ratio of the construction companies. 2) As for directions in tax and financial supports, taxation regulations and financial support for the elderly should be changed. 3) As for directions in facility planning, improvements are suggested for the planning of residential and public space as well as the location conditions. 4) As for directions in facility service, suggestions are made in regard to medical service providers and leisure activities programs.

The object of main enumeration is TOMONOURA (following, TOMO), a port town which represents the scene of SETONAIKAI, and 14km south from the Fukuyama-City, Hiroshima Prefecture. Although it was one of the harbors which were prospered from the 17-19th century, and prospered most in the fishing and the steel industry, since the inheritor of a decline of a steel industry and a fishing was insufficient, more than 10,000 people at the peak hour was halved with about 5000 people. Furthermore, the aging rate has reached to 38% and solitude elderly people form 5.3% of population (3% of national average). However, the nursing home of TOMO is only a group-living and a small care-home be set up as an annex to the group-living, and many dementia elderly people are living, supporting by a community at their own home. The purpose of this investigation is to solve the structure of the community of TOMO, how the community and the people living in TOMO supporting the elderly people with dementia and elderly people need requiring care.

This study has a clear two aims. The first aim is to find clear evidence of a connection between contemporary and modern architecture based on their ecological ideals. The second aim is to define the ecological characteristics in the space design of modern architecture by an analysis of space composition, structural characteristics, mass, and positioning plans in modern architecture. The scope of this research is limited to the space design types of organic architecture, which has appeared from the modern age. In particular, this research focuses on the living environment of modern human life. Five major stages were undertaken in this research. First, an extensive literature search was conducted in order to gather a comprehensive works of modern architecture. Second, observation was undertaken to define the ecological characteristics from previous modern architecture styles. Third, the researched works of architecture was selected through the analysis of social and age background for the space design types of organic architecture. Fourth, the living environment design types of human life were also selected about the first selected architectural works. Fifth, the ecological characteristics in the selected architectural works were defined. Last, the taxonomy of the findings, which are the ecological characteristics, was undertaken based on a relationship among the findings, space composition, space form, space structure, technology, and material. This research work mainly produced two findings. First, the philosophical ecology concept from the architects who designed the selected architecture in the modern age will be discussed. In detail, the philosophical ecology concept of the architects can be described in the four concepts of ‘localism’, ‘organic relation’, ’economic aspect’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ through survey results which are produced characteristics of space composition and structure in the ecological paradigm of modern architecture. Second, the ecological characteristics in contemporary architecture are defined in modern age architecture. The ecological characteristics in contemporary architecture are nature friendly, a good condition for residential life, a flexible component for space, and an efficient architectural structure for saving energy.

This study attempts to analyze the ecological characteristics of apartment houses’ interior designs that more than 50% of Korean people live in and to suggest the future direction to improve the quality of residential environments. The research survey included visiting model-houses from June to September, 2006. Among thirty eight construction companies that were selling their apartments in Busan, Korea during 2006, eight companies that distributed large-sized apartments of more than 132m2 through the model-house distribution system were selected. Twenty units shown as full-scale models in the model-houses of these companies available for distribution were analyzed by the ECO-checklist. The ECO-checklist was designed based on the literature reviews of the previous studies in order to analyze the interior environments in ecological aspects. It includes four categories: 1) energy efficiency, including the use of natural and artificial lighting, natural ventilation, and control of heating and cooling, 2) exterior and interior greening, 3) sustainable use of natural resources such as materials and water, and 4) flexibility of space for future use. The following findings have been categorized. First, in terms of energy efficiency, natural lighting and interior ventilation did not show any problem by using an arrangement of south-heading orientation and large-sized sliding windows. Second, for the finishing materials, most of the floors were covered with wood flooring or polished tiles, while the walls and ceilings were covered with silk wall paper. Third, the finding showed that interior greening was considerably insufficient. Verandas in living room or bedrooms were provided for greening and multipurpose use, but actual plantings were few. It would be an appropriate solution if construction companies provide the residents with beautiful and easily maintained tree-planting veranda areas with the proper drainage facilities rather than change the veranda to an extended room area. Finally, in terms of space flexibility, it would be possible to reduce the materials wasted if the spatial configuration can be easily changed in accordance with life span and the needs of the family. However, most of the spaces currently provided are fixed. Through the installation of a flexible wall system that can be easily be moved by ceiling rail, the residents can enjoy the flexibility of the given space and control the number of the rooms according to their needs.

"Recently in Japan, many community spaces, which have the space for drinking coffee or tea, have been established by the people who aren't specialists. The purpose of these spaces is to support lives of inhabitants, especially children, elderly people and handicapped people, by offering them opportunities of the social contacts. The establishment of these places represents that conventional institutions don't satisfy the needs of inhabitants adequately. We call these spaces ""Community-Cafes"". Inhabitants can call at there freely, can drink coffee or tea at a reasonable price, and can stay for a long time. If they want, they can talk to others, make friends and participate in regional activities or circles. At Community-Cafes, we can find people who are always there, who cherish the place concerned, and who play responsible roles there. We call such people ""the hosts of place"". Community-Cafes, where the hosts exist and inhabitants can access freely, are the semi-public places. The aim of this article is to clarify what kinds of thoughts realize the management of Community-Cafes. The objects of this article are 3 Community-Cafes; ""Lounge for Parents and Children: TOPOS"", ""Shimoshinjo-Sakuraen"" and ""Machikado-Hiroba"". The method of this article is interviews to 3 hosts of the 3 Community-Cafes. This article clarified that there are many similarities between 3 hosts' thoughts to manage Community-Cafes. The thoughts are as follows. (1)Everydayness; 3 hosts emphasize that Community-Cafes should be held everyday. (2)Flexibility of the management; to grant inhabitants' needs, 3 hosts emphasize that Community-Cafes' functions should not be fixed beforehand but be formed gradually through management. (3)Unorganized management. (4)Cooperation with various regional organizations. (5)Flexible relationship between the hosts and the guests; 3 hosts think that the hosts may talk to the guests together at Community-Cafes, and the guests may help with Community-Cafes' management. (6)Tolerance of being together without conversations. (7)Gradual arrangement; 3 hosts think that Community-Cafes should not be set up at once according to initial plan, but be arranged gradually by utilizing available things each time. We can appreciate that 3 hosts are extremely conscious, and that the existence of the hosts is extremely significant. The management of Community-Cafes realizes the restructuring of regional environment physically and socially."

"The social concern with the dispute over high-rise buildings in the urban space has been growing again for the last several years in Japan, and there is much demand in the explanatory model for psychological influences of those buildings. This study aims to verify the validity of the ""view factor"" as the explanatory variable accounting for the oppressive feelings caused by the buildings. The result of the study shows that when the front view of one building is evaluated, the oppressive feelings can be explained by the view factor to some extent, but its aspect ratio also has an unnegligible effect. On the other hand when more than one building are adjoining each other and the subjects observe them from the acute angle, the combination of the view factor and the aspect ratio can not sufficiently explain the effect on oppressiveness. In order to apply this index to the high-rise buildings control in urban spaces, it is necessary for us to find some additional variables in future."

It is clear that the new paradigm of emerging design process is bound to electronic and digital technologies. The other fact in digitalized architecture is the base with an extremely fluid and dimensioned application space. Thus, we need new and capable tools to practice in this new environment. Over the years a number of methods have been developed to facilitate the participatory design process. All are designed to engage the local community and most use relatively simple technology. Computers have made a significant impact on architecture in practice. Computer supported generative systems can provide useful inputs for developing different types of architectural products. Usage of generative systems in architectural design is an expanding domain. This research and design activity includes parallel processes like algorithm creation, software development and form design. Many designers have focused on the production of free form designs as computer generated images and less as physical models. Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD) has an increasingly important role in the architectural professions as a tool for visualizing and documenting their solutions. Currently, CAAD systems have adequately satisfied several demands. They have dramatically improved the accuracy and consistency of working drawings, enabled fabricators to visualize their ideas in three-dimensions, allowed the analysis of final designs through data exchange and integrated databases, and even allowed the designers to evaluate designs based on comparisons to previous cases and/or the formalization of grammars. This study intended to suggest digital design prototype for sustainable manufacturing in environmental design.

"This contribution describes the transdisciplinary research completed between 2005 and 2007 by an international team about the interrelations between spatial representations and daily mobility in urban areas. This research articulated geographical, psychological and sociological approaches that have already been applied to study daily mobility. However these disciplinary contributions have rarely been intersected using an interdisciplinary framework. The presentation begins with published definitions and applications of transdisciplinarity by the author. Then it considers the theoretical issues stemming from the legitimate discourse of each disciplinary analysis of some specific dimensions of each subject that has been studied. The presentation also considers how these theoretical articulations led to the reformulation of the initial research hypothesis about the links between spatial representations and daily mobility. Finally an example of interrelations between the cognitive, geographical and sociological dimensions of daily mobility will be presented. This example illustrates the hypothesis of the ""identity of movement"" which is one indicator of social identities"

We compared place attachment and place identity differentiated according to birthplace and length of residence. The results revealed differences between intensity of attachment and identity depending on place of origin. A second study revealed that for subjects with less time living in the neighbourhood, attachment is significantly superior to identity, whereas for participants with more time in the neighbourhood, these differences disappear, in such way that identity is significantly superior to attachment. The last analysis is aimed at examining the influence of neighbourhood environmental conditions on bonds with the neighbourhood. Participants’ answers to a questionnaire were analyzed by two path analysis in which the predictors were neighbourhood stressors, neighbourhood maintenance; dependent variables were attachment and identity. Results show that stressor factors influence neighbourhood attachment but not identity of place.

In the recent years several renewable energy sources have been introduced on the electricity market. However, while the renewable energy market is constantly growing, in some cases renewable technologies meet resistance, such as wind energy converters. A lack of social acceptance can be responsible for the delay or even the rejection of an innovative technology. The present research aims to examine the social acceptance of small scale vertical wind turbines as a particular source for renewable electricity. To improve the understanding of the factors influencing the acceptance of wind energy in this paper we integrated previous research on the social acceptance of renewable energy and social psychological models on the attitude – behaviour relation. The participants represent a sample of 120 farmers and house owners. Using survey data and adopting previously established compound measures, regression analyses revealed a remarkable explanatory power for proposed model of social acceptance. The present research is part of an interdisciplinary project in which engineers, economics, industrial designer and psychologists work together to study the technical possibilities as well as the social acceptability of the small scale vertical wind turbines. This project is supported by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany.

This is basic study of Adaptation Process to the Home Environment of Peruvian Immigrants of Japanese Descent in Japan. The study is intended to identify the trends and characteristics of the adaptation of Peruvian immigrants to their new home environments in Japan, in addition to the way these recent immigrants have organized their lives to build a new home for themselves. Investigations described in this paper specifically examine personal changes that occur when the immigrant relocates into Japanese society. History repeats itself, so they say: the return migration of Peruvians of Japanese descent was enabled by the amendment of the Japanese Immigration Act of 1991. From that year around 50,000 Peruvians of Japanese descent have migrated to Japan seeking for a new place to call home. They were welcomed in the 1990s to fill gaps in employment markets. They were willing to work at unattractive jobs in Japan, the so-called 3D Jobs, Dangerous, Dirty and Difficult (Oizumi Poketto Gaido, 1996). The grim economic situation in South America made relocation to Japan an economically attractive option for these Peruvians. Based on a questionnaire survey and a survey of private living spaces, we have established correlations between immigrants’ adaptation to Japanese society and their relation to their respective home environments. We found correlations between immigrants’ attitudes and their residential and living environments.

"This research investigates adaptation processes among temporary migrant workers. Migration is viewed as a developmental transition during which the migrant repositions himself, in order to occupy ""a space of identity"" that is both psychologically and socially acceptable to him. Adaptation was defined through social and spatial practices in the host city, social positioning with regard to values allowing for an understanding of the stay, and perception of the life course over the migration period. The investigation was carried out among 225 domestic helpers from the Philippines in Hong Kong. Results bring different adaptation strategies to light within the migrant community. Mobilization of community resources and settings, achievement of a sense of place, and questioning of actual or future life conditions, are viewed as comprehensive indicators of adaptation in temporary migration."

There are many ways in which adults control children and young people’s use and experiences of the external environment and public spaces in England’s town and cities. Woolley has suggested that for skateboarders these adult controls are social, legal and physical (Woolley, 2006). For other young people the privatisation of public spaces can be seen as an ultimate expression of all three of these aspects of adult control. In England, for children who like to play in, explore and experience the outdoor environment one of the most significant forms of adult physical control is the way in which ‘playgrounds’ have been designed and implemented for a period of forty or so years. Such spaces have been described as comprising of a Kit of equipment, with a Fence – initially to keep the dogs out but increasingly to keep the children in – and a Carpet of tarmac, or rubber ‘safety’ surfacing – these can be known as KFC playgrounds (Woolley, 2007). This approach to the design of ‘playgrounds’ has continued, despite the evidence that contact with and experience of ‘natural’ elements, such as landform, vegetation, water, sand and loose parts is good for children. So there are questions to be asked as to why this adult form of control, which is expressed in the manner in which playgrounds in public spaces have been designed, exists and what drives this approach. This presentation will address some of these questions and discuss possible reasons.

"This study analysis the students' understanding of the positive and negative aspects of a boarding school based on pictures taken by themselves. The pictures and their interpretations by the students allowed the elaboration of an affective cartography of the places valued positively and negatively by them. The concepts of "corner", "stain", "trajectory" and "porch" were used as analytical referential. It is concluded that there is a space appropriated by the students, which is different from the established by the boarding school. Positive contexts tend to grant opportunities for the development of competences, providing stimulating conditions of engagement and self-efficacy to the students, while negative contexts evoke negative approaching processes with people, things and symbols, which hinder reciprocity and engagement. It is suggested that in the negative sectors there are opportunities for policies aiming at integrating, sharing, and democratizing the management of aspects of the boarding school with the students. "

Affinity towards Diversity (ATD) is conceived as a tendency to prefer or liking diversity and variations in the constitution of bio-physical and social scenarios of everyday life environment (Corral-Verdugo et al, 2007). A number of studies developed by our research groups have shown that this dispositional variable correlates with sustainable behavior, which includes actions of preservation of the physical environment (pro-ecological behavior), as well as pro-social actions such as altruistic behaviors. In addition, ATD seems to be linked to dispositional correlates of sustainable orientation (i.e., predispositions leading individuals to appreciate the diverse and dynamic interdependencies characterizing human-nature interactions, and to adopting more sustainable personal lifestyles). The aim of this paper is to describe a series of studies developed in Mexico and Italy, showing how ATD is related to factors that the relevant literature considers psychological correlates of sustainability. Using a scale developed by our group we assessed the level of preference for social and biological diversity in different samples. The scale exhibited an acceptable level of internal consistency and it also showed construct validity. According to our studies, the correlates of ATD include austerity in consumption, future orientation, pro-environmental deliberation, feelings of indignation for environmental deterioration, affinity towards nature, the perception of pro-ecological norms, proecological self-presentation, altruism, tolerance, attitudes towards urban biodiversity and general proenvironmental behavior. Results of these studies suggest that humans have a certain degree of affinity for one crucial feature of ecology: diversity, and also that this affinity promotes pro-sustainability orientation. Implications of these studies for research on psychology of sustainability are discussed.

Intensive socio-spatial differentiations are a characteristic trait of Latin American societies and have a powerful impact on land use patterns. The large scale of residential segregation pattern is not only typical for most of Latin American cities but also of Chilean cities. In the past two decades these patterns have been undergoing transformations in two main aspects showing ambivalent directions: firstly, on a geographical scale at which segregation takes place —in some cases contracting and in others expanding— and secondly, on segregation’s growing malignancy. Regarding the urban context we can realize a new urban structure within the cities in Chile and Latin America. The most notorious and extensive change of the traditional residential segregation pattern is the emergence of gated communities for medium and high-income groups not located in their traditional areas of residence but rather closely to lower income neighbourhoods! The issue that new social and physical borderlines have emerged plays not only an important role for the social mixing of otherwise evenly poor areas, but also for new opportunities of socio-spatial integration processes as well. That’s why the general research problem focuses on new social integration possibilities or barriers on the base of the observed spatial proximity.

UK Government has funded 83 projects to communicate climate change to the English public aiming to change attitudes. Projects varied in target audience, size and cost. Each designed and ran their own attitudechange interventions. A total of 20 people who took part in one of two interventions (one regional and one local) were interviewed using conceptual content cognitive mapping (3CM) as an orienting framework for discussion. The variables included in Stern’s (2000) framework of environmentally significant behaviour were probed using open-ended questions. 3CM data were analysed qualitatively, categorised, and subjected to further quantitative statistical analysis. Interviewees differed considerably in the extent to which they reported carrying out climate-friendly behaviours, yet the concepts and categories identified through 3CM were markedly similar across participants. The paper will conclude by identifying possible variables that would account for reported differences in behaviour among people with similar cognitive maps of climate change (eg beliefs about outcome efficacy and perceived behavioural control).

Amman is the capital of Jordan and it has more than a third of the country’s population. Greater Municipality of Amman (GAM) is now in the process of preparing its new master plan of greater Amman area. Given the seriously growing traffic problems in the city, (GAM) is planning to bring in new public transportation solutions as part of its new master plan. This will include new bus systems & routes. The concept of public transportation is not only expected to significantly reduce traffic congestion, but it would also help to lower the country’s unbearable consumption of energy and it would be compatible with the vision of the Jordanian Ministry of Environment. However, many of Amman residents are reluctant to use buses. Therefore, we believe that for the idea of public transportation to succeed, cultural and social factors which strongly influence people’s attitude to public transport need to be understood and addressed in the new arrangements. This is an abstract of a proposal to do a user study to scope out users’ attitudes towards both the existing and proposed transportation systems, and then come up with some recommendations for GAM. This research is needed as it gives GAM insights on the needs of the current so that we can further encourage them to use the service. It is also equally important to get insights on why non-riders do not ride. Hence, GAM can improve their service to meet their expectations and in turn increase the ridership. Before conducting this research on a wide area, we are proposing that this proposed study first focus on one selected street. This will provide good overview of travellers’ typology, and it would also give us the chance to test the methodology before carrying the complete study in multiple areas. The selected street will contain a mixture of users – out of town commuters, students, internal commuters, plus all the other daytime users. We are currently preparing for collecting demographic and psychographic data from bus users, bus drivers, taxi drivers, bus companies, people waiting at service queues, university students, bus stops, local cafes … etc. The study will begin by a demographic characterization of the street users, followed by a population segmentations and psychographics analysis. A priority system for segmentation will be proposed, according to which GAM will have to cater for different segments of users in its future transportation plans. The study will take place in February- May/2008.

“Possible and partial sustainability” in economical, physical and social terms in a defined context is related to maximum quality of life with a minimum of natural resources exploitation. It is evident that current tools to analyze social reality are insufficient. In the case of quality of life the approach is mainly quantitative under the basis of well-being indexes combination to establish thresholds and make comparisons in country regions and among countries. This research work deepens in architecture as a means of achieving habitability and well-being for users of public urban spaces and indoor spaces. The work intends to explore the relationship between habitability parameters and well-being expectations in buildings and public urban spaces. Studying technological features in buildings would make us understand design tools, technologies involved so as to elaborate trends in planning. Urban and architectonic habitat implies movements, repetitive behaviours in time, which give permanence. Nevertheless, there exist multiple expressions of temporalspaces, which not only include permanence but also identity, territoriality, temporality and mainly materiality as a social production. Habitability is a function of comfort parameters concerning the object of architecture. Well-being is a resultant of comfort parameters, ecological services, and cultural perceptions concerning public spaces. The term “habitability” is presented to evaluate quantitative and qualitative features of architectonic design whereas “well-being” considered as an index of quality of life in a social context. People use parks or courtyards mainly due to habitability conditions beyond cultural issues, that is to say, temporal and spatial satisfaction given by comfort conditions. In Rosario city, Argentina, with a temperate-humid climate, public parks form part of the net generated by Indian Law present leaf foliage canopy granting habitability conditions. In the same way, interior “patios” of Italian and Spanish immigrants’ houses as well as comfortable conditions in rational Modern Architecture express environmental sensibility. In all of this, the comfort conditions are achieved by passive systems and conscious design. Case studies are presented to introduce this approach as a means of exploring possible sustainability in a defined context and social reality: Rosario city.

Wayfinding experiments can be conducted in real and virtual environments. In a real environment it’s often impossible to exclude the presence of others from experiments; the majority of real-world wayfinding experiments in complex settings are generally performed in populous settings. Conversely, virtual wayfinding experiments are often performed in simulations utterly devoid of other people, as it’s a technical challenge to populate a virtual test-environment with agents of sufficiently realistic appearance and behaviour. It’s clear that the presence (or absence) of people within any environment constitutes an experimental variable, one that has never been controlled for and one about which we know little. The primary question of this paper is what effect does the presence of others have on wayfinding performance? This paper will outline a new hypothesis regarding the role of other people in everyday, wayfinding behaviour: this is termed the person-space/person-place cue proposition. The newly developed hypotheses underpinning this paper are that people, in un-crowded, relatively sparse environments (i.e. the ‘normal’ milieu), influence others in one of two ways, in this paper, they will be termed ‘person-place cues’ and ‘person-space cues’ respectively. The first part of this dualhypothesis concerns the ‘person-place cues’. The idea of this hypothesis is that the location of people in an environment is suggestive of the popularity of that place (a clear distinction is made here between space, as neutral container and place as experiential, ‘lived-space’). This might be due to a temporary event that is taking place in the space or more permanent activities located there (e.g. shops). We ‘read’ this inferred popularity and make decisions accordingly. The suggestion, in this paper, is that this type of inference is more likely to effect exploratory type behaviours such as exploring a new city, wandering through an art gallery or even unstructured (i.e. spontaneous) shopping trips. The second part of this hypothesis concerns the ‘person-space cues’. Space syntax research is based upon the fact that all spatial systems (complex buildings, settlements etc) form configurations or ‘sets of spatial relations’. Within each complex environment there exists a spatial hierarchy, with some spaces being intrinsically more important or strategic whilst others are more segregated and less important. Space syntax theories suggest that we are able to ‘pick up’ visual cues leading to inferences about a space’s importance or equally lack of importance. For example, within most typical cities, the more strategic roads will tend to be those that contain longer, unbroken lines of sight, terminating at obtuse angles and will often be wider and more highly connected roads than, for example, minor side-streets. We ‘read’ these visual cues unconsciously having learnt their spatial significance as part of our early development. On the whole there will be an agreement between the numbers of people walking along the street and that street’s strategic importance and this is also something that we are unconsciously aware of. If you walk along Oxford Street in the city of London, you would expect it to be crowded, however if you turn off onto a minor side-street you would experience a sudden and significant drop in the numbers of people encountered. This would not be perceived as being out of the ordinary. However, if there is a sudden mismatch between the perceived spatial hierarchy of a street and the number of people encountered on it, i.e. the pattern of occupancy, then this will be read as being a somewhat ‘strange’ or ‘unexpected’ phenomenon (i.e. if you were to walk down Oxford Street and find it almost empty) and, it is argued here, that this could contribute to the process of wayfinding decision making. For example, if there were fewer people than you would expect (i.e. in the rather extreme Oxford Street example above) you might begin to wonder if you had stumbled into the middle of an ‘emergency situation’ and therefore, it would be most prudent to attempt to return to a place of personal safety. Conversely, if you were about to turn down a relatively minor side street, where the expectation would be that it would be occupied by few or even no Paper in Proposed Symposium others, and, instead, you were to observe a small group of people gathered. You would, again, register the incongruity of this spatial-mismatch and make other inferences (possibly that the reason for their presence could be potentially nefarious) and change your route-plan accordingly. It is clear that the two above hypotheses are connected and this is one of the challenges of developing an experimental framework to test the effects of the person-space and person-place cues. Over time, more popular streets will tend to attract shops, which, in turn, will attract more people and so a multiplier effect will take place. However, for the purposes of this paper, and for the purposes of the experimental framework that will be outlined in the second section of this paper, we will only be considering person-space cues and so will only be examining wayfinding and excluding exploratory tasks (these tasks and behaviours would contribute to another mirrorset of experiments).

Most of the psychological investigations on preference have come to their conclusion after having adopted different kind of explicit measurements. Only few studies on preference used implicit measurements. The present research investigates implicit preference for different kinds of items belonging to three topics: visual art, architecture and physical environment. Studies employing direct measures shows a general preference for figurative vs. abstract pictures, classical vs. modern architecture and natural vs. built environments. This research consists of three experiments. A first study compare evaluation of two different art styles, figurative vs. abstract arts. Two other studies, comparing architectural styles (classical vs. modern) and environmental places (natural vs. built), are still in progress. Participants. Sixty students without training in arts or architecture. Material. Sixty pictures: 10 of figurative and 10 of abstract art; 10 of classical and 10 of modern architecture; 10 of natural and 10 of built environment. Furthermore, 10 words with a positive and 10 with a negative meaning were selected. Measure and procedure. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is used. Participants task consists on classifying stimuli (presented on the computer screen) into four categories, using only two response options. Two categories for each of the three experiments are respectively: figurative and abstract art; classical and modern architecture; natural and built environment; two other categories are positive and negative words. The hypothesis is that the preference for figurative art, classical architecture and natural environment will be confirmed also adopting implicit measures. As predicted, in the first study on art, compatible task (figurative/positive-abstract/negative) was faster than incompatible task (figurative/ negative-abstract/positive), respectively 684 ms vs. 840 ms (t (19), -4.038, p = .001). More errors were made on incompatible task (n=36) than on compatible task (n=11; t(19), -2.763, p = .012). The central point of the results would be a faster reaction time in compatible vs. incompatible tasks. This stronger associations would indicate that participants show a clear automatic preference towards these items. Figurative art, classical architecture and natural environment might share some common features (familiarity, easiness-to-process, adaptive functions) that orient preference also at the implicit level.

Researchers have done substantial research on the relation of physical environments to active living, much of it using physical observational measures of environments. Though this research is important, it may produce an incomplete picture. Perceptions of environmental attributes and perceived aesthetics affect walking. There is value in learning about people's perceptions of environmental attributes that are associated with increased or decreased likelihood of walking. This paper surveys and evaluates various options for measuring perceptions of specific environments and alternatives for study designs and methods. Referring to the relevant studies and concepts in relevant disciplines, it identifies and evaluates the methodological choices: selection of respondents, measurement of environmental attributes, sampling and mode of presentation of the environmental stimuli, and response measures. Research can build on current knowledge of environmental perception to explore measures and methods of particular relevance to understanding people’s likelihood of walking in urban places.

Right from the Vedic era to the present day, cremation of the dead boy has been in practice in almost all sects of the Hindus in India; the only exception being the ascetics or sanyasins, the infants or those suffering from some infectious diseases. Even owing to intensive mobility and inner migrations from rural areas to the metropolitan cities this practice of the last rite is followed. Although not much importance is attached to the place of one’s bringing up or childhood, yet wherever possible people do have choice of place to be cremated and for this purpose some times their bodies are transported to a holy place such as Varanasi, which is considered as the ‘grand crematorium’ or Mahashmashana. It is pertinent to note that every devout Hindu nurtures this desire to die or to be cremated in Varanasi, for it is believed that one who does so is liberated from the bondage. If this does not become feasible, the ashes and the bones of the dead are collected after burning the body in a pot and it is subsequently immersed in one of the seven holiest rivers or one of the seven holiest cities. Hence the strictest observance of the funeral rites is given more importance while place attachment is limited to the cremation of place and immersion of one’s ashes. However, there are variations in the choice of place of cremation by people depending on their religiosity, family ties, nature of family (e.g., nuclear, joint, extended) and family ties (loose vs. tight), socioeconomic status, and the place of residence etc. To study the choice of places for cremation or burial and its determinants, a questionnaire derived from the one applied in France, Spain and Brazil is being administered on approximately 80 participants of Bhopal, Central India. Taking into account the sociocultural and religious factors, the results will be discussed in terms of belief systems, social and family ties, socioeconomic status as well as the role of place attachment.

The choice of a burial place is becoming more and more an issue in a context of increasing mobility from rural areas to cities, from small cities to big cities and through international immigration. Cities are rapidly growing all over the world. It is anticipated that in a few years more than half of the world population will live in big cities. As a consequence in Paris, for instance, less than half of the inhabitants were born and brought up in the Ile-de France region. Settling in a new place is often accompanied by a feeling of belonging which arises through the stability and the permanency of the established ties with a particular place and by its inscription into duration through an individual and family project. To identify oneself to a place means that this place acquires a central role and is affectively important. Mobility sometimes even produces multi-centred investments, and is it not only the place of birth and early childhood that constitutes equally strong affective familiar and environmental ties. Death is mostly seen as a return to more affective and religious roots and a detachment of life projects. It is also a more individual choice (in GB, for instance, very few do speak with their partner about their choice). It is, in most countries a preoccupation since it has to be anticipated whether for religious reasons as for instance in India, or for material reasons as it is the case in Europe. Traditionally people were born, grew up, married within their surroundings and mostly died where they lived for their whole life. In Europe and America, the natural choice of a burial place was within the family grave and easily followed the dominant cultural and religious prescriptions. In present days, the choice of a burial place seems to be rather complex and raises potentially a series of questions which often represent conflicts in the moment of the decision. The objective of this symposium is to gain insight about the way in which people take or do not take a decision about the choice of their burial place. More precisely the following questions will be raised: What is the influence of the physical and social attachment to the place of current residence, versus the physical and emotional attachment to the place where one has grown up? What is the weight of ascendant family ties? How do religious considerations influence the decision?

The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have rapidly become usual, both in environmental sciences, and in everyday language. But the implications and motivations of these concepts have not rooted into citizen's minds. Our daily behavior doesn't seem to be affected by sustainability demands, and environmental problems depending on citizen's attitudes and behavior keep growing. In this paper, we assess the knowledge and attitudes towards sustainable development from a sample of citizens of Galicia, in northwestern Spain, and look for a diagnosis of the current status and connections between attitudes, behavior and knowledge about sustainability.

The appreciation and active protection of diversity, not only in the biological domain but even the in sociocultural one, are becoming key components of international programs for ‘sustainable development’. The hypothesis that evaluative and emotional perception of bio-physical diversity parallels perception and evaluation of social and cultural diversity has been tested trough a set of studies, carried out in various Italian cities. Two different measures were employed to systematically assess people’s attitudes and emotional affinity towards biological and social diversity. The first one, the scale of attitudes toward urban green areas considers attitudes towards the diversity of urban landscape, when this includes also biodiversity features such as green spaces (Bonnes, Aiello, Bonaiuto, 1999; Carrus, Passafaro, Bonnes, 2004). The second one, the Affinity Towards Diversity (ATD) scale measures people’s attitude toward social and biological diversity in general (Corral et al. 2007). First results support the validity of the measurement instruments, and confirm the hypothesized association between evaluations of social and bio-physical diversity. For example, negative attitudes towards urban green areas positively correlate with measures of Ethnocentrism and Authoritarianism, with people’s general tendency toward intolerance. Similar results were obtained for ATD scale, which positively correlates with tolerance, altruism and Indignation for insufficient environmental protection.

A way of consumption without degradation of the Earth’s resources is austere consumption. An austere consumer’s lifestyle is characterized by moderation in the acquisition and use of economic goods and services in such an inventive way that long-term goals are achieved. It is necessary to understand the patterns that characterize consumers, both those with an austere lifestyle and those with a life of luxury and squander. The average consumption of Electric Power (EP) in Mexico City per household is 270 kWh bimonthly equivalent to USD$41 approximately (Mexico City Government, 2007). From a social-ecological perspective, and within the Mexican context, EP consumption represents a problem which has been scarcely studied and which requires a multi-disciplinary approach to obtain viable and efficient options. The household EP consumption pattern in Mexico City depends mainly on the house’s appliances, the weather, the family’s habits and the time of day. Thus, 35% of household EP consumption is used on illumination; 30% on refrigeration; 25% on entertainment and 10% on other activities (Ramos, 2003). Empirical evidence suggests that austere consumption is an important variable in a pro-environmental behavior regarding water consumption, reduction of consumption and purchase of products (Iwata, 2006). So far, empirical evidence has not been identified relating from austere consumption and household EP consumption. The objective was to document austere household EP consumption and how it relates to low and medium socio-economic levels. The scale generated, “Rational Electric Power Consumption – CREE” (by its acronym in Spanish) is based on the social satisfaction curve proposed by Domínguez and Robin (1992). The curve explains the relationship between money expenditure and consumer satisfaction for any good or service received, classifying consumers according to their lifestyle. This curve covers four aspects: survival, comfort, luxury and squander. The scale has five factors (luxury, squander, consumption due to ignorance, efficient consumption and pollution) with alpha >.67. The sample was 200 housewives living in two apartment complexes in Mexico City, from medium and low socio-economic classes. The scope and limitations of austere consumption are discussed from a social ecological perspective, making an emphasis on the heuristic potential of the social satisfaction curve in order to explain the man-environment interaction involved in household EP consumption

Several European and North American cities are now sprawling metropolitan territories. In the last thirty years, the distance between the residence and the geographical center of these metro areas has increased significantly. So much that the word sprawl is being replaced by concepts such as dispersion, diffusion and fragmentation to reflect metropolitan areas defining an amorphous and discontinuous territory, now reaching the countryside. In this context, how is car dependency experienced by aging adults? This symposium compares the auto-mobility behaviors of elderly living in suburban and periurban areas of German, Italian, Mexican and Canadian metropolitan areas, as well as the meanings and representations of the city as well as of vehicular mobility for these older adults. The relationship between the residential location, on the one hand, and the loss of corporal and motorized mobility, on the other hand, are explored through empirical evidence from qualitative and quantitative studies conducted in these different countries. Similarities and differences are pointed out in relationship to local urban form and the level of services, amenities and public transportation. The challenges of aging in periurban areas as well as avenues for facilitating it are discussed in conclusion. Four communications will be presented during this symposium. The session is designed to be paired or associated with a companion symposium on children and teenagers' mobility for which another proposal has been submitted.

The aim of this research is to focus on historical background of an urban structure. Certain places in cities are able collect the different layers of history. The different meanings and emotional attachments not just influence people's attitude towards the place but determine the history of the layout. As being landscape architect I'm interested in the history of layouts and it's affects on human perceptions. For this reason I have chosen a place where layers of history has made a strong mark: the former Stalin Square in Budapest. This square is particularly rich in inherent environmental-psychological changes. It is a sequence of antagonism which determined its past and heralded its future. There are only a few places in Budapest where the episodes of our history (as forms and patterns of human behavior) could be traced so bluntly and genuinely as on the former Pageantry Square. It is necessary to find those mental symptoms behind the Stage of History which determine the mood and face of the present. On the 23rd of October, 2006 we inaugurated a “new” old square of Budapest. The ex-”Pageantry Square” became “The Square of heroes of 1956”. This antagonistic identity change shows the stressful life of the place. 150 years ago it was a part of the capital’s biggest public park, which slowly became the territory of laborers weekend activities and demonstrations. In the 30’s a church was built here as the sign of the national conservative identity, which led to a antagonistic place identity. This intensified when the church was demolished and replaced by Stalin’s enormous statue, where pageantries where held during the communist dictatorship. In 1956 the people’s wrath cut down the huge statue. On this place is now the 50 year anniversary monument of the Revolution. All this emotional, psychological, and social process has become balanced now. In this poster-presentation the colorful history of the square (with plenty of documents) will be introduced with an environmental psychological approach, showing how the consecutive ideologies of the 20th century changed people’s attitudes to this artificial square of Budapest.

According to the Japanese national statistics, the number of the elderly with dementia within those certified as eligible for long term care is estimated 1.7 million in 2005, which, at the same time, is estimated to grow up to 2.5 million by the year 2015. In the year 2002, about the half of the elderly with dementia lived in community and the rest lived in institutionalized residences of any kind with long term care service. Since the population of the elderly is estimated to increase further to mark 1/4 of the whole population of Japan at its peak after 2015, we expect that the need for long term dementia care at institutionalized residences should increase in the future. There have been many Environmental Behavior studies undertaken at nursing home environment in Japan. Parallel with the studies, promotion of private rooms at nursing homes was implemented in government policy, and further forwarded the spread of small scale group homes throughout the country. In this paper, the authors argue environmental differences between the 2 major types of residential facilities for the elderly people with dementia in Japan, i.e. nursing homes (NH) and group homes (GH), by examining residents' behavioral errors occurred within either of the two environments. The cases of the residents' behavioral errors were collected by interviewing the trained care staff of each facility, and classified into 8 categories. The result suggests that these categories are further summarized into 3 patterns: the first, represented by category II - behavioral errors in relation with spatial disorientation -, is the ones which are observed more in NH than in GH. And the second, represented by category I & VI - errors in appropriately going in and out of the building or a room, and errors in doing suitable tasks in an appropriate time and place, respectively -, is the ones vice versa. The third, represented by category III & V - errors which accompany urinary or excretory problems and/or sanitary troubles, and errors on handling the things either caused by the confusion of possession or in manipulating ordinary tools -, is the ones which are observed frequently at certain residences but not necessary of the same type. Detail examination of the cases further suggests that environmental differences between the two facility types might bring these differences in numerical distribution of the patterns.

In this paper, we present: (1) a theoretical approach to examine older people’s pattern of outdoor activities based on the concept of ‘personal projects’; (2) different research instruments—Personal Activity Questionnaire and an Activity Diary—designed to capture the different aspects involved in the analysis of outdoor activities; (3) the results of different pieces of research using these diverse instruments. Overall, the results show that outdoor activities are seen as meaningful personal projects for older people, associated with their health and psychological well-being. Current development and revisions in the research instruments are also presented and discussed.

The legacy of Wilderness preservation is supported by the American public. Wilderness values deemed important to publics include recreation use values as well as non-use values. Protecting those values in light of pressures from increased population environmental change represents a significant challenge. In part this paper builds upon the effort to broaden discussions of environmental issues beyond a traditional biospheric focus, to incorporate other values imbedded in environmental concern. This paper examines benefits experienced by urban residents who visit urban-proximate wilderness areas. Such areas are under elevated threat from population-related direct and indirect impacts. One might assert their surrounding populations (urbanites) are likewise under increased threats from these same impacts and may glean unique benefits from the urban wilderness experience. Drawing from a set of studies conducted over more than a decade, benefits to the urban wilderness visitor are examined.

This presentation aims to clarify and deepen understanding of the relations between two hitherto rather separate literatures within Environmental Psychology: literature on place (attachment and identity) on the one hand, and literature on public acceptance of energy technologies, on the other. Whilst the ‘NIMBY’ concept has been typically used to explain public opposition to the siting of renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines, this concept has been extensively critiqued by a range of social scientists based in disciplines such as Geography, Sociology and Political science. Here, I argue that a more productive basis for providing a psychological explanation for public opposition, or ‘NIMBYism’, is to consider it as a form of ‘place protection’ (Stedman, 2002) which occurs when individuals and groups who feel strong, positive emotional bonds with a place (place attachment) or who self-identify with the place (place identity), interpret technology siting as a form of place disruption (cf. Brown and Perkins, 1992). This puts further importance upon understanding the links between various place concepts and different forms of action, particularly those described by Stern (2000) as low and high commitment environmental citizenship behaviours, which can include such actions as writing letters of protest, signing petitions and joining or setting up protest groups. These conceptual arguments are illustrated with empirical data from case studies of renewable energy projects in the UK.

Given EU targets to achieve 20% of renewable energy supply by 2020, it is more than ever important to understand the dynamics of public responses to the siting of renewable energy technologies, particularly large-scale wind turbines sited both onshore and offshore, large scale PV installations and bioenergy plants. All three technologies have proven unpopular in the past, leading to local social conflict, planning delays and even rejection of projects. Given the uncertainty such public response can cause, both to industry and to policy-makers, it is timely to provide a platform for researchers from highly varied contexts to come together to share results and deepen understandings. This symposium brings together researchers from Europe, North and South America, and aims to capture recent conceptual and empirical advances in what is becoming a rapidly developing, yet hitherto under-theorised research area in social acceptance of renewables. As the ‘NIMBY’ (Not In My Back Yard) concept becomes less frequently used to explain public responses, so understanding of issues such as trust, procedural justice and aspects of public consultation become more important.

While recycling is a common research subject in environmental-responsible behavior studies, we know little about how contextual factors (such as physical, social, and cultural environments) influence people’s attitudes and behavior. Aiming at exploring the importance of contextual factors, this research used a mixedmethod qualitative approach. Forty-five semi-structured interviews were conducted within two groups of people: Americans who moved to Munich, and Germans who moved to New York City. Most interviews were conducted in their own residence; photos were taken both in their own apartments and in the building common areas in order to assess how garbage and recyclables were sorted, and to record available information or prompts in the physical spaces. While the study covered a range of research questions, this paper focused on people’s different orientations to recycling. As opposed to previous studies -- which tended to distinguish recyclers from non-recyclers -- the findings showed that these differentiations were usually dynamic and diversified. Not only the boundaries between recyclers and non-recyclers are not as definite, even within recyclers, there is also a wide spectrum of them. This study also discussed how relocation, along with the changes of contextual factors, could influence people’s environmental thoughts and behavior.

Conflicts between human activities and the management and conservation of the biological diversity are becoming apparent in all European landscapes. Public support and acceptance of conservation measures seems urgent to reach national and international conservation goals. This project analyses the psychological factors behind public acceptance of biodiversity conservation measures. In an empirical study, perceptual and emotional responses to three types of broadleaf deciduous forests with different vegetation structure and species composition are studied. These responses, as measured by EEG and questionnaires, are related to acceptance of management and conservation measures for the biotopes.

In neuroscience a number of new techniques have been developed by means of which it has become possible to study the activity of the living human brain. By means of these techniques we are beginning to understand the neurophysiology behind environmental attitudes and preferences. In addition to an introduction to cognitive neuroscience, this invited symposium contains a number of presentations, where brain wave analysis has been employed in Environmental Psychology. The program includes: The impact of interior colours on brain waves (B. Mikellides); Biological diversity, attitudes, and brain waves (M. Johansson); The use of fractals and EEG in landscape analysis (C. Hägerhäll); How does the brain respond to everyday objects? (R. Küller). The discussion: Neuroscience as a basis for Environmental Psychology, is introduced and lead by G. W. Evans.

Ecology in developmental psychology is strongly associated with Bronfenbrenner’s model of the ecology of child development focusing on the interconnectedness between different settings and systems, both physical and social. His multilevel approach stimulated numerous studies about complex influences on child development, including methodological innovations of multi-level analysis. However, the “ecology” has been introduced into psychology before, focusing on different aspects of the interrelationship between people and their environment. Lewin’s field theoretical approach emphasized the (subjective) experience of places and objects (lifespace), and only his “psychological ecology” drew attention to facts that follow nonpsychological rules but nevertheless have an influence on a person’s lifespace. R. Barker, with his “ecological psychology”, focused almost exclusively on these extra-individual (physical and social) features of settings that are shaping (rule-oriented or scripted) behavior patterns of individuals. Bronfenbrenner from the very beginning recognized both, objective and active, growing child and ever-changing multi-level environments, later extending his approach into a bio-ecological one. Yet another conception seems adequate to address the interdependencies between children and their environment. The concept of ”appropriation”, originating from the Russian school of psychology (Vygotsky, Luria etc) points to the sociocultural and interpersonal context of all appropriation. Human mental and physical activities make the world a human habitat, and in turn arouse, incite and afford human activities. Ever since “appropriation of space” became the theme of one of the first IAPS conferences (Strasbourg 1976 ), C.F. Graumann and I developed the concept and proposed modes of appropriation. I will report on a recent doctoral thesis by Andrea Petmecky who operationalized some of these modalities and developed new methods to study the appropriation of preschool settings by 5 to 6 year old children (via cognitive and verbal responses), looking at different pedagogical principles (as an example of the macro-system), as they become manifest in the built environment and the behavior of the care takers. Results demonstrate interesting interactions between the quality of the architecture, the pedagogical principles and the more or less active appropriation of children and educators.

Trust has generally been seen and analysed in the context of reducing risk and uncertainty, yet rarely with power. Power is everywhere, and therefore has an effect of producing trust (or distrust). Trust, however may also be considered a resource that can be mobilised in the exercise of yet other modalities of power. In this work, I attempt to build and test a conceptual model of the interactions of trust and power. This conceptual model that links trust and power through several feedback loops is being tested empirically through a case study on urban water planning and management on the Gold Coast, in Queensland, Australia. While this study deliberately concentrates on urban water, as there are high levels of trust necessary for the ‘politics of life’ (where something – water – is necessary for the sustenance of life), it can have widespread implications for other engagement practices in the environment, development, etc. This is of particular interest, as the type of trust (active trust) that is postulated to emerge from deliberative and possibly communicative dialogue in community engagement practices for urban and environmental planning and policy-making.

The design of building envelope and the definition of its elements, can influence both the quality of the external spaces perception and the living standard referred to internal building spaces. This improvement depends by the planning of some component design. Particularly, solar shadings and integrated plant solutions, also thanks to an increasing consequential interest about the issue and the legislative and normative evolution, represent factors able to be involved both in the performance and morphological quality of building envelope (improvement of energy efficiency and living quality of internal spaces), which can influence the perception of environment. A study about this questions has been conducted through the elaboration of a system of Best Pratices, a Code of Practice, for the new Plans of Zone of Rome Municipality. The indications contained in the Code takes in examination the integration-mitigation and facilities connection of solar collectors in the building design, and the possibility of integration between solar shading and collector elements, customized like a support tool for the sustainable design of building envelope.

The complexity of healthcare buildings continues to increase, influenced by developments in technology, rising expectations for high quality care expressed by the ageing population in many first world countries, and the diversification of care models away from the traditional hospital to various care settings in the community, including the patient’s home. The challenge is to accommodate this complexity in the design of appropriate physical spaces that support clinicians in the delivery of high quality care that is safe and ensures good clinical outcomes by promoting good patterns of clinical teamwork and communication. At the same time such space must also balance the need to promote and safeguard the needs of the patient in terms of providing environments that assist rather than hinder healing, with the interests of those funding and managing care delivery such as health service organizations or government bureaucracies whose focus is often on the ‘bottom line.’ Finally, we need to deliver architecture that will enhance the human spirit and promote well-being for those occupying the facilities we design. This paper examines the interaction of stakeholders and ‘evidence’ in the decision-making processes that necessarily accompany the development of evidence-based health facility guidelines for use for the design of hospital projects in Australia and New Zealand, both developed nations in the Asian-Pacific zone. Developed as a briefing tool for all public projects these ‘free’ web-based guidelines are also used widely in the private sector to ensure that a commonly acceptable minimum standard of design is achieved consistently across the Australasian region. This paper will look at the processes that develop these guidelines, including their reliance on ‘evidence’ from research including traditional academically derived research findings and also methods of research and evaluation that are more practice-based. These include post occupancy evaluation of selected projects as a tool for informing review and update of current guideline provisions and examination of how findings from such studies become the ‘evidence’ that underpins future guideline development.

Highly automated systems are likely to result in increased monitoring and supervisory control activities: the operator is placed in monotonous situations for long periods but he/she is required to be immediately alert and ready to make quick decisions if some critical events occur. In order to better understand the operator capability variations in complex environments the construct of “Situation Awareness” (SA) has been introduced. SA has been defined as the individual ability to (a) perceive elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, (b) to comprehend their meaning, and (c) to predict their status in the near future. However, SA theory development appears to follow many applicative requirements neglecting several basic aspects such as a clear definition of the cognitive processes engaged, and the standardization (or formalization) of elements, events, interactions, goals and behaviors leading to different degrees of SA. The aim of this study is to fill a gap in the literature in order to successfully understand the relationship between operators cognitive state, SA degree, modes of communication, and performance efficacy in teamwork. A computer game of strategy inspired by the board game Risk! will be used in the experimentation. The aim of the game will be to control armies in order to conquer and hold strategic (or functional) countries on the map. Participants will be assigned to teams and they will communicate from separated locations via “instant messaging” or “voice”. Two different levels of taskload will also be defined. Result will clarify: (1) the relationship between the cognitive processes engaged in different levels of taskload and the maintenance of appropriate degree of SA; (2) the teamwork behavioral strategies for reaching a shared goal; (3) the role of communication in the OFS variations and in SA sharing; (4) the role of geometrical/functional characteristics of the scenario (distance, color, etc.) on SA; (5) the possibility of integrating the individual SA measures in one team SA assessment (i.e., Shared SA). The emphasis of the current study is to provide a conceptual design of how the operator functional state should be represented and displayed in collaborative technologies aimed at improving the sharing of knowledge and awareness.

The proposed symposium aims at enriching the debate on the ways the conception of the built environment at different scales – from the single building to the city – can promote and protect the people’s health. We intend to discuss a renewed vision of the space for the care of the psycho - physical health which concerns not only the healthcare facilities but the whole built environment in which we live and work. The stress, because is posited to be at the origin of several of the most widespread and costly pathologies and also because it is correlated to the environmental conditions in which it is generated (and which can be planned) is assumed as the key topic. The proposed symposium intends to be an occasion of dialogue between two different disciplines both concerned with the socio-physical characteristics of the built environment: architecture and environmental psychology.

After a long period of relative stability, the contexts in which disposal of the dead takes place in the UK have been subject to change. Since the late 1980s, the cultures of burial and cremation have altered, and it is clear that the period of change is still under way. This paper considers contexts for the ‘modern’ culture of burial in the UK, and reflects on a number of policy developments that have both facilitated and responded to that change in culture. In particular, the paper highlights the ways in which the needs of bereaved people with respect to commemoration are currently being privileged; the growing professionalisation and feminisation of cemetery and crematorium management; environmental concerns relating to cremation; and the resurgence of private sector interest in burial provision. The imminent introduction of the reuse of graves – a measure hitherto illegal in the UK, without special license – looks set both to test and augment this revival of interest in burial.

“Caipira” Roots composes a social laboratory developed by the Psychology Laboratory of Social Environment and Intervention (LAPSI) of São Paulo University’s Psychology Institute. Its proposal is to provoke a continuous educative process for a municipal Master Plan elaboration and its management by the community. Cunha, SP, a small sized city located in São Paulo State, takes part in the social and economic structural framework of the region which has revealed problems either for the small sized cities or for its bigger urban centers. The incorporation of land to the eucalypt agroindustry has become in a new land expulsion factor of families who have been tied to the rural way of living dynamic. This social laboratory aimed to create experiential methodologies possible to be developed and rethought to the region. This laboratory was set in the rural school net of Campos Novos de Cunha district, disseminating this reality reading process in a neighborhood scale, reaching the students’ and their relatives’ homes. The collected data mosaic formed the base for the creation of scale models of living and desired territory, highlighting the affective dimensions of daily routine and the physical conditions related to the market and land use, the forms of work production and survival. By means of group dynamics, the residents met each other and could exchange experiences about their reality vision, their problems and the perspectives of building a future for Campos Novos. The community chose a theme as the one with bigger consensus degree and of its actual interest so that it could unite the existing energies to start its accomplishment with their own community forces and resources aiming to act in the public sphere. Health was the chosen theme to start the process of participative planning although others ideas have emerged as essential to have good health such as reestablish the social link net that was very rich in the rural way of living in the past, to give prior attention to the children, to value the knowledge of the rural world, to search for the healthy way of getting drinkable water from the sources, preserving and protecting them; to take care of the sanitary aspects etc. By the moment of the second community forum, the teachers started leading the process of conducting the works of participative planning together with the collectivity to build a perspective of future for this and for the future generations aiming the political emancipation.

Cairo, the Egyptian capital, has grown into a high density, over crowded city with a population over 15.5 million. Built on former agriculture and desert land, contemporary Cairo constitutes a densely laid urban fabric with few spaces in between. These spaces play a vital role in the public life of Cairenes. They appropriate particular public places as well as other informal urban settings to their use; whereas, many formal public spaces remain relatively abandoned and receive few Cairene visitors. This paper examines this dilemma of Cairo’s public space through a poststructuralist framework that works on two levels. The first considers the abstract model of place identified as people, place and the relation in between. The second considers the wider context of public space in Cairo, the relations in between the multiple dimensions, spatial, historic, social, cultural, political, economic and administrative. This study aims to reconstruct a reading of the multi-relational dimensions of Cairene public space, in order to help architects and urban designers to address and manage these multiplicities, and hence, restore the quality of urban life in Cairo through public space.

"The aim of the paper is to discuss questions about camera surveillance and crime prevention in a changing urban landscape. Based on a systematic review on international research on camera surveillance and results from a case study in south Sweden, involving young people, the effects on crime prevention and use of public space will be discussed. Special focus will be on cultural and social aspects, including the relation between attitudes towards surveillance technologies and their effects on crime prevention and social interaction in public places. Surveillance, the process by which the few monitor the many and keep records of them, is an old city phenomenon. In architecture we can find it as an archetype in Jeremy Bentham´s Panopticon Prison. Other ""historical"" examples are the ""Gossip mirrors"" – often found on the windows of multi family houses in Scandinavian cities - through which you could watch the street without opening the window. Today we have more sophisticated surveillance methods using video cameras and electronic equipment to watch the other and to protect ourselves from encroachment. In recent years there has been a sustained growth in the use of camera surveillance in public places in many Western nations. One estimates that the total number of public cameras in the U.K. are 4.2 million, or one for every 14 citizen. In the U.S. there are no national estimates on the number of cameras, but local accounts indicate that they are being implemented at an unprecedented rate and their popularity is no longer limited to large urban centres. In countries like Sweden and Norway the amount of cameras are growing rapidly but at the same time they are highly regulated in public places often requiring a permit from the county administrative board. The primary objective of camera surveillance is the prevention of personal and property crime in public space. But what are the social and cultural benefits of such urban surveillance? Are these cameras a threat on our personal integrity? The very idea of camera surveillance evokes curiosity, desire, aggression, guilt and above all - fear. These emotions interact in a day dream drama of seeing and being seen, concealment and self exposure, inclusion and exclusion. Can the intension and attraction of these dramas help us to understand the glamour and malevolence with which the technologies of surveillance are invested, and our acceptance of it?"

The personal networks of elderly people tend to decline as they become older, however, if they are dog promotes healthy aging and is a positive stimulus for the growth of personal networks in the community. owners, social relationships are stimulated through dog walking. To clarify whether dog owner’s personal networks sustain growth quickly and easily, we monitored and compared the network structures, which were created by “dog walking” and “other” activities such as neighbors chatting and community circles. The subject locations were situated 2kms radius of residential area in Tokyo. The participant was a healthy dog owner, 68 years old, who resided in the area and who, for her dog walks, often used a river centrally located in the area. The surveys were performed at 6 month intervals; with the first survey submitted 3 months after the participant started her dog walking activities. Four surveys were done between March 2004 and March 2006. A P.D.M(Psychological Distance Map) was used to create her networks, We analyzed network size, network density, strength of the relationship. As a result ; 1)Over time, the “dog walking” network expanded four fold from the first survey. The other networks (community circles and neighbors chatting) didn’t illustrate significant changes over the same period and were always smaller than the “dog walking” network. 2) Over the two years of surveys, both of the network’s densities maintained the same ratios regardless of fluctuating size. The “dog walking” network density ratio was ten times lower than the “other” networks. Even if the number of the “dog walking” network ties and members increased, the density ratio remained constant. 3) The strength of the “dog walking” relationships varied. Almost half of the members had “weak ties”4). The number of the members having stronger ties did increase. Over half of the original members, who had weak ties in the beginning, built strong relationships over the period of this study. The results of this study indicate that, “dog walking” stimulates growth of new members, and strengthens interpersonal relationships in the community. We confirmed that “dog walking” networks expand quickly compared with other personal networks. The relationships between new members are usually very weak at first, but the relationships become stronger quickly. In this case study, we found that the function of “dog walk.

Demographic change and regional disparities have led to a decline in urban population in many cities throughout Europe. Taking Eastern Germany as an example the poster discusses main problems resulting from this trend as well as strategies to deal with it. It presents research results from various projects that have dealt with shrinking cities at the UFZ in the last couple of years. Main points to be discussed are: the interrelations of population decline and aging in respect to urban planning, consequences of vacancies for private property, and the governance of urban restructuring (including demolition.

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches have become the core of important theoretical contributions during the last decade. Innovative research strategies and methods tackling complex subjects and contexts that deal with people-environment relations have been presented at academic conferences and seminars. One aim of this invited symposium is to not only improve our understanding of these approaches but also discuss the challenges to implementing them effectively in precise situations. The contributors to this symposium discuss contributions thathave made transdisciplinarity emerge as a new way of looking at the relationship between knowledge, science and society especially in the conext of urban research and professional practice. Collectively, the contributions in this symposium will provide an understanding of the differences between interdisciplinary and trandisciplinary approaches. They will specifically focus on the challenges for implementing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches in urban contexts and discuss what obstacles have been encountered and how more effective implementation can be promoted.

In the midst of dynamic real estate capitalism, persistent social inequality and extended investment in public works, the struggle for space between promoters, low-income residents and other land uses is resulting in complex urban landscapes that contain unexpected opportunities for sustainability and better quality of life. I will assert that the traditional segregation pattern of Latin American cities is undergoing a radical transformation towards lower-scale forms of residential segregation, where decreasing physical distance between people of different social condition is combined with the resort to fenced or walled type of designs. Forces fuelling these changes include the quest for land rents on the part of a powerful real estate private sector, and the urge on the part of the vulnerable households to accomplish a better “geography of opportunity” within the city. The social context that sparks these changes and effects –that makes of segregation a real menace, even a decreasing segregation—is formed mainly by labor insecurity (unprotected jobs) and political marginality (the virtual disappearance of political parties’ activity from low-income neighborhoods). The urban complexity that is exploding in large Latin American cities under this environment, should be assessed in its potential for social and environmental sustainability, and not only in the inequalities and environmental problems that become visible, as usually done.

This presentation focuses on how legal interventions for biodiversity conservation are received by local communities. The study was developed to accompany an habitat conservation and biodiversity protection project implemented by a national NGO and it has a before-after design, with two data collection moments. The main objectives are to address the positioning of rural communities towards the Natura 2000 sites were they live and to understand how the acceptance or refusal of the practices favouring biodiversity conservation are shaped by contextual factors. He first survey mapped positions before the NGO interventions, and the second survey will monitor the changes that meanwhile occurred. The research design of the first survey also contributes to clarifying a contradiction that emerges in the literature concerning the role of place identity on local involvement: some studies show that place identification is related to support to protected areas, others show that it is related to rejection of protected areas. We disentangle these apparently contradictory findings by examining the moderator role of relevant contextual variables: (a) vested interest regarding the natural resources of the area, (b) evaluation of the process of designation of the protected areas, and (c) trust in national authorities. The results of the first survey show that communities have a positive attitude towards protected areas, but are also aware of and elaborate on both the positive and the negative aspects associated with these institutional tools. Place identification is related with support to protected areas only when residents directly suffer the impacts of change (high vested interest), revealing that, in this context, pride of living in a protected area is particularly relevant for enabling positive evaluations of legislative interventions. The support to conservation practices is also very high, but these are more affected by contextual dimensions. The second survey – now under preparation - will explore the significant modifications in the positions of the rural communities as an outcome of the interventions of the conservation project team, but also the impact of more recent governmental policies. The discussion will focus on the relevance of addressing contextual factors related with the implementation of laws that affect the relation of local communities to biodiversity conservation goals.

Chaotic settings are characterized by high levels of noise, crowding, instability, and lack of structure and predictability. I discuss why chaos is harmful to children, focusing on the disruption of proximal processes. Proximal processes are the exchanges of energy between the developing child and the persons, objects, and symbols in their immediate environment. In order to be effective, proximal processes need to occur regularly, over extended periods of time, and involve progressively more complex, reciprocal interactions as they child matures. The occurrence as well as the predictability and sustainability of effective proximal processes are challenged by chaotic circumstances.

A considerable body of research addresses the role of the physical environment in child development. Children’s experience of their environment is connected with their perception of safety and with the feelings of fear. Safety is an essential resource for everyday life, needed by individuals and communities to realise their aspirations and it is a sources of identity expansion. It therefore includes two dimensions, objective and subjective, and both can influence the sense of well-being and the possibility to enhance exploration of the environment and to grow individual autonomy. Childhood should be characterized by feelings of security because place usually does not extend far from home, school and playing with other local children. However in the pre-adolescent stage, people begin to make more use of their local environment. Individual’s sociodemographic characteristics are also likely to influence the perceptions of their neighbourhoods; girls and boys tend to be socialised differently and use public spaces in different ways, and older children will use more extensive areas of the city than younger children. The aim of this contribution is to present the results of a research-project about the analysis of the feelings of safety/unsafety and fear of crime that arise from living as a child in urban environments that differ in structural and social features. More over we have investigated children’s self-esteem and well-being in order to examine the link between these constructs and the sense of security. Subjects of the study were 518 students of an average age of 10 years (261 males and 256 females). The research included 14th primary school from three different urban neighbourhoods in the city of Genova (Italy). Questionnaire was composed by: demographic information about children and their parents, measures of urban sense of safety and risk perception, self esteem and well.-being scale that includes measures of activities with peers outdoor and indoor. There are some questions that arise from the present study: are sense of safety and fear of crime correlated with children’s self esteem and well-being? Is there a relationship between sense of safety and structural and social features of the neighbourhood? Are there some differences in the sense of safety related on gender, age and social-demographic characteristics of parents? The results will be discussed in the presentation

There is a growing psychological literature on children’s environmental choices and how they may affect self-regulatory processes such as emotion regulation. While the school playground is an important environment for the socialization of children, there are relatively few studies of how children use these outdoor play environments and of what guides their choices of where to play. A total of 31 children in third grade (21 girls, 10 boys), 19 children in fourth grade (7 girls, 12 boys), and 70 children in fifth grade (28 girls, 42 boys) were shown models of two separate school playgrounds that contained different configurations of grass, asphalt, trees, and play structures. Neither model resembled their own school playground, and these models contained no social density information about where most children might choose to play. Participants were asked to indicate where they would choose to play on each of the model playgrounds when experiencing each of six different emotional states (excited, happy, bored, sad, angry, and nervous). Choices of where to play were categorized as public areas (wide open areas central to the playground) or private areas (along the periphery of the playground or hidden behind visual barriers). After indicating where they would play, participants were asked to elaborate on the reasons for their choices. Reasons were coded into seven categories: emotion regulation, activity/physical feature of the playground, social, solitary, nature, combination, or other. Children chose public areas more often for positive mood states and private areas more often for negative mood states. They gave more activity/physical feature and social reasons for the location choices with regards to positive emotional states, and more emotion regulation and solitary reasons for the location choices with regards to negative emotional states. Thus, children’s environmental choices appear to be linked to their affective states and may, in the case of negative emotions, contribute to successful emotion regulation.

"This study aims to investigate the relationship between the urban environment and its inhabitants, especially from a children’s point of view. The relationship between children and urban environment is often characterized by parental fear and anxiety concern the risk of car accidents, and imply restrictions on children mobility, isolation from other children and adults, and greater necessity for parental supervision and control. Björklid (1994) defined this feeling of anxiety and fear as the ""traffic environmental stress"". Kyttä (2003), on the other hand, defined most child-friendly those environments that “offers children possibilities to take part in all of the everyday activities of the village” (p. 12). According to the author, child-friendly environment is characterized by a high level of children independent mobility and by a great number of affordances (Heft, 1988), they can perceive and actualize. The affordances an individual can use are tied in with the degree of mobility in their own living environment. Also, an environment where the activities of adults and children are not set aside and structured in special spaces is also presumably an environment where social control is more widespread and the degree of sense of community is higher (Tonucci, 2006). “A scuola ci andiamo da soli” (“We go to school alone”) is an Italian project that aims first of all to give back some autonomy to the children, asking them to go to school on their own without being accompanied by an adult, and then to re-create, in adults, social conditions of responsibility and protection and therefore safety conditions for the children themselves and for the whole neighbourhood community in general. A recent study (Prezza et al., under revision) conducted in the city of Rome analyzes the changes in children independent mobility along the home-school commuting before and after the “We go to school alone” project. This data may show that there is a correlation between the taking part in the “We go to school alone” initiative and the accomplishment of self-sufficiency, probably extending the latter to other environments beyond the home-school route, such as shops, friends’ houses or sporting centres."

The role of building facades in the consumer choice process is not well understood. In two studies, photographs representing two commercial building types (office building and converted heritage house) were shown to participants, who chose between them for legal, dental, financial, and medical services, and also rated them for expected comfort level and quality of service. In Study 1, Canadian university students preferred office buildings for all four services. In Study 2, Canadian community residents (M = 44 years old) preferred converted heritage houses more often for legal services. Participants in both studies reported that they would be more comfortable using office buildings for dental, financial, and medical services. Participants in Study 2 expected that they would be more comfortable visiting converted heritage houses for their legal needs. Participants in both studies also expected better dental, financial, and medical service in office buildings, but those in Study 2 expected higher quality legal service in converted heritage houses. Implications of these preferences and predictions are discussed.

Elderly people contribute to the construction of a personal and social sense of identity through the story of their life. The sense of identity is strongly related to the sense of belonging to a neighbourhood. This study was aimed at investigating the sense of belonging to a neighbourhood and of identity among elderly people living in a big city in the North-West of Italy. The sample is composed by 27 subjects (2 men, 25 women), aged 68-92. Data were collected through three focus groups. The qualitative data analyses with Alceste have shown five classes. The first class, called “The customs of the past”, is characterized by the following words: tram, cinema, friends, flag, hamlet, Sunday, ice-cream, ice, we went, we did, on foot, in the old days, in the past. The customs of the past and the old-time Turin places come up. The second class, called “The changes in customs and the immigration”, is about the change of life habits in the neighbourhood due to the presence of immigrant people and the impossibility of doing the same old things. This class is characterized by the following words: people, many, now, immigrants, change, integration, habit, they have, they do, to protect themselves. The third class, called “The places of own personal memory”, refers to intimate events such as the own birth, the marriage, the children’ birth. The sense of belonging to the neighbourhood is expressed by the following words: born, mine, husband, nephew, here, always, I am, I live, married. The fourth class, called “The yesterday’s places compared to the today’s ones”, refers to the physical and geographical changes (e.g. the closure of some factories) and to change of habits (e.g. from local shops to supermarkets) that have affected the neighbourhood. Such class is characterized by the following words: places, today, it lacks, changed, “Martini”, “Lancia”, skyscraper, current, differences, shop, supermarket, shopkeeper. The last class, called “The importance of the Memory for young people”, is about the elderly people’ wish to tell young people their story and to hand down the pride of belonging to Cit Turin to them. The distinctive words are: memories, story, generations, meaning, young people, told. Our results underline the important role played by the place in which the subject lives in defining its own identity. Elderly people have told the story of their life, that is strongly connected with the Cit Turin district.

Symposium organized jointly by IAPS Culture and Space and Education Networks Hülya Turgut Y•ld•z, Ashraf M. Salama, and Peter Kellett Recent years have witnessed dramatic changes in the socio-physical environments of cities suggesting the presence of multiple diversities. This is exemplified by changes in the structure of contemporary societies, the emergence of informal settlements, housing problems, large structure and new building types, and the deterioration of the built heritage, while the complexity of the built environment is continuously increasing. With these changes demands for new types of knowledge and their application in design pedagogy are clearly on the rise. The theme of this symposium is introduced as recognition of ties that have not been of concern for long to the mainstream design research. Therefore, the symposium addresses ways in which 'people-environments' paradigm can be enhanced in design pedagogy where the theme of cities and cultural diversity is explored through different paradigmatic approaches. In this symposium, eight provocative and diverse papers are presented to shed light on the dialectic relationship between culture, diversity, and pedagogy. These are of S. Mazumdar on What's Culture Got To Do With Design Pedagogy; A. Abdel-Hadi and T. Rashed on Influence of Cultural-Environment Diversity on Conceptual Output; A.M. Salama on Pedagogical Tools for Integrating 'People-Environments' Paradigm in Lecture based Courses in Architecture; H.T. Yildiz, G. •nalhan, and S. Y. Tok on Using Traditional and Historical Cities in Architectural Design Education; A. S. Deviren on Understanding Place through Design Studio Studies; J. W. Robinson on Travel Pedagogy for International Study of Housing and Urbanism; D. K. Shehayeb and N. H. Sherif on Shaping Young Architects’ Minds: Wearing the E-B Glasses; and A. Eyüce on Learning from Istanbul. Representing different regions, the papers offer an exposition of philosophies and discourses, cases and experiments, and programs and approaches as voices that call for integrating 'peopleenvironments' paradigm into teaching practices in an effective and efficient manner.

Information processing tendencies of attitudes to places were investigated. An attitude is defined as a construct that represents a person's like or dislike for an object. Preferences derived from attitudes towards places were assessed by means of a Likert-type questionnaire with four response alternatives. Participants were 23 students from the Department of Environmental Studies. Information processing tendencies were grounded in the theory of Meaning that deals with identifying sets of cognitive processes involved in the successful performance of diverse acts. Information processing tendencies were assessed by means of the meaning test. Correlation tests were used to analyze associations between attitudes towards places and information processing tendencies of meaning inputs. Preliminary results obtained from an analysis on preferences for open vs. closed spaces showed that in both cases the meaning dimensions of locational qualities and of the state of the object are high, and differ significantly from those who do not care about either. However, individuals with preferences for open places scored higher in positive emotions, and those with preferences for close places scored higher in negative emotions. Grasping the atmosphere of a place was correlated positively with emotions and locational qualities, judgments and evaluations, and metaphors. Participants concerned with matching specific behavior to specific places scored higher in the cognitive processes relating to locational qualities, judgments and evaluations, and functions. Those caring about orientation in space differed from the rest in higher scores on the dimensions of locational qualities and quantity, as well as in anxiety.

In neuroscience a number of new techniques have been developed by means of which it has become possible to study the activity of the living human brain. By means of these techniques we are beginning to understand the neurophysiology behind environmental attitudes and preferences. The mechanisms involve links between the sensory and control parts of the cortex and specific nuclei for reward and aversion, amongst others located in the limbic system of the brain. Such links are highly resistant to extinction and have a lasting effect on the individual’s behaviour later in life. However, the highly flexible human brain is constantly prepared for revisions and additions even later in life.

This is an experimental study to investigate cognitive process in persons to the urban environment based on an ecological approach, while their wayfinding behaviors changes by repetition learning. The results are summarized as follows. 1) The cognitive process of the urban environment is composed of the following four stages. First stage: This stage is not done not only Visual-Organization (VO) but also Sign-Organization (SO), and shows various behavioral patterns that repeat the trial and error based on an individual characteristic. Second stage: This stage is not done SO while VO is roughly done, and shows the uniform behavioral pattern based on the functional distance. Third stage: This stage is roughly done VO and SO. However, this stage still shows the uniform behavioral pattern based on the functional distance as well as Second stage. Fourth stage: This stage is completely done not only VO but also SO, and shows the uniform behavioral pattern based on the cognitive distance. 2) In the cognitive process of the urban environment with an irregular streets network, “First stag / Third stage / Fourth stage” appears newly in addition to “First stag / Second stage / Fourth stage” in the urban environment with a grid network of streets. This reason is that the scheme toward the target point was diversified because the cognition of the urban environment with an irregular streets network is more difficult than the urban environment with a grid network of streets.

It is most important, even crucial, for people’s well-being to deal with the decisions concerning their own environment. The group which is usually forgotten even in the most collaboratively arranged urban planning and design processes are the children. In this paper we report the preliminary results of the research project called InnoArch, Places and Spaces for Learning during the first year of the project (2007). (belongs to a trans-disciplinary InnoSchool consortium aiming to develop a set of research-based good practices, processes, models and designs for the Future School Concept.) The pedagogical idea based on inquiry-based learning encourages to strengthen children’s (pupils) epistemic agency in the local community and to empower them to be active stakeholders in it. We invited pupils to take part in the planning and design process by developing methods to find out what kinds of places and spaces attract them and why. Our research questions are pointing on two directions: 1. In what ways can the collaborative planning and design process with children act as a tool for active citizenship and cultural learning? 2. In what ways does children’s environmental local knowledge enrich urban planning? Several sub-studies were carried out with pupils to produce data of their environment by following methods and this paper is aiming to describe one of them. In this sub-study at Arkki (School of Architecture for Children), several planning and design workshops were organized for children to examine their visions for a better future school. Students in two age groups (7-11 and 12-18) were producing ideas of their own in scale models, texts and drawings for the school building and the environment. The workshops were documented in photographs and videotapes. InnoArch is constructing the research both on the socio-cultural and pedagogical ground and on architectural theories about place and space, which have been developed along with the thinking of human geographers. The project aims to figure out a concept for the future school and a learning neighbourhood. The preliminary results of the project already show how safe and free the children’s experiences of their daily environment in Finland are and, how important for general well-being in life environments it is to manage their own “working” places.

State of Development of Thesis: Research Proposal Draft Research Topic This research explores the relationship between architecture and public space and people, in informal urban settlements (popular habitat) in Colombia. The people in these areas are developing their own built environment through their ideas, initiatives and economic possibilities. The aim of this study is to explore, identify and analyze the architecture and the public space produced by these local people, as well as the social and cultural relationships with the built environment. In other words, the public space outcome in relationship with the social and cultural local fabric Problem Statement The fact that urban and housing policies, as well as architecture and urban practice, have given little attention to informal settlements has helped to set off and develop the social and economic problems within these deprived areas. The understanding of the processes and production of these settlements, as well as the social and cultural relationships that are held with the build environment, could help to solve the problems of these conflictive and interesting areas Objectives 1.To contribute to the discussion on informal settlements and the potential to build city and community in the 21st Century 2.To identify, analyze and discuss collective construction of public space in informal settlements, in terms of vernacular architecture, cultural identity and popular aesthetics 3.To identify and discuss theories, and/or methodologies, and/or elements “learnt” from the informal approach to build public space and community, to the formal development of architecture and urban practice Literature Themes The conceptual framework is intended to be set according to the keywords described before and grouped as follow: •Informal Settlements and Popular Habitat. •Self Build/Self Help, Community Participation/Community Involvement and Local Initiative/Local (Indigenous) Knowledge. •Cultural Identity, the Social and the Built Form, Vernacular Architecture (Environments) and Popular or Everyday Aesthetics

Despite the strengh of intrinsic motivation to predict pro-environmental behavior, there are other motivational factors involved on the explanation of prosocial citizenship behaviors. For this reason, in this paper we are interested to analize the role of satisfaction with the quality of service on individual and collective recyclying behavior. This study have been performed in order to ascertain the external motivation that leads communities to adopt certain environmental behaviour. A long sample of citizens from 55 towns answered a questionnaire. Participants were asked about their routine recycling behaviours, specifically, the extent to which they sorted their rubbish into different materials (paper, glass and packaging). Based on the answers, an environmental performance index was generated with high internal consistency, the Self- Reported Recycling Behaviors. Although, an Observed Collective Recycling Behavior measure was created from the mean of kilograms of paper (Mean= 7.61; Sd=2.76) and glass (Mean= 6.45; Sd=2.24) that each citizenship deposited across the different towns evaluated. The correlation between these two observed measures was high. The questionnaire evaluated the general level of Satisfaction with Recyclying Service, the Satisfaction with Prize and eigh items about the Satisfaction with Quality of Service. A varimax rotation factorial analyses performed with these eight items about quality of service showed two factors. First factor is associated to quality of attention to citizenship (e.g., satisfaction with time of answer; four items) and second factor is about quality of infrastructures (e.g. satisfaction with modern equipments-containers; four items), both factors showed a high reliability index. These two quality of service index were related with the general satisfaction and with both measures of pro-environmental behavior, individual self-reported and observed collective recyclying behavior. A lineal regresion analysis showed that general satisfaction followed of perception of quality of attention to citizenship are the main predictors of observed collective pro-environmental behavior. These results are discussed in relationship with other pro-environmental behaviors. The findings of this study can be associated with the proposal of those communities who maintain a higher level of satisfaction with service and quality of citizenship attention service go on to carry out a greater number of environmentally responsible actions.

Sustainable development is an increasingly fundamental international agenda and considered the basis for the construction of ‘good place’. Recent studies define place in terms of its significance within networks of social relationships rather than simply in terms of qualities that exist within a physical locality (Easthope 2004). Current environmental design practices, however, lack effective processes to remain current with and respond to the social structures of the constantly evolving and dynamic communities within which they operate (Bess 2003). And whilst there is increasing effort devoted to public consultation arguably the methods employed focus on individual responses to the geographic and physical boundaries of place with limited reference to social influences. Without a methodology that can describe the community in terms of its extended social network it is argued that relevant and therefore ‘good’ places cannot be created; without the longevity offered by ‘good place’ then the sustainability of the community itself is in jeopardy. This paper discusses the importance of social networks as principle influences of the concept of place, and stresses the necessity for qualitative research within the professional design process. At a micro level the paper emphasizes the need prioritise the social network before the physical network.

Recently, in districts that include public or improved housing complexes, while residents have been becoming older and the number of poverty-stricken households has been increasing, there have been problems in the maintenance of communities and the provision of care to residents. In public housing complexes especially, because they are partly characterized by the supply of temporal “housing” as a safety net without consideration for permanent residence, it is highly likely that outside support will become essential. In this situation, under the existing social systems, an increasing number of districts are carrying out community development activities with the themes of living in peace and collaboration with various entitles. Their activities are extremely varied, and there are many excellent activities. In this report, I will explain the four examples of community work in Osaka in which I have participated. Although I cannot report the trial and error processes in their efforts due to limited space, I hope that this report will become an opportunity of sharing “experience” during exchanges among community people, and that this will help other districts’ further efforts at “community development-originated community work”.

This poster compares two community participation projects for redevelopment in different parts of Los Angeles. Despite the similarities between the two projects such as the structure of the community workshops, size of the site to be redeveloped, and participation of students as part of the same course under the same instructor’s supervision, the main difference is the profile of the communities. In light of the discussions, which warn against the pseudo practice of community participation and its natural consequence as NIMBYsm, comparing these two projects is informative. The first project was to provide development alternatives for a five acre area adjacent to a public open space in a relatively affluent part of Los Angeles. However, prior to its acquisition as public property, the site was rented exclusively to equestrians as a staging area for the rest of the park. Unsurprisingly, the same group of equestrians was heavily involved in decision making process regarding the future of the site and the nature of its public use. In the end, both alternatives for development of the site were some form of combination of uses among equestrians, mountain bikers and pedestrians, in spite of the fact that none of the equestrians or mountain bikers were among closeby living residents. The second project was also to provide development alternatives for a five acre area. This time, however, the site was located in a low income area of Los Angeles. The site was particularly crucial for this part of Los Angeles, since this was an attempt to redevelop an area which had been used as a recycling site for a long time. The non-profit organization of the area helped students organize the community workshops. Both alternatives for the site included different versions of mixed use development with affordable housing. Comparing these two projects supports the idea that community participation is open to NIMBYsm, which allows different parts of the population dominate the decision making processes. When interested citizens with a single agenda dominate the community workshops, their influence on the decision making process is inevitable. Without a doubt, the solution lies in increasing awareness and participation of different parts of the population. This poster demonstrates the lengthy and complex procedure followed in order to increase awareness and participation at the initial stages of the second project.

The empirical basis for a comparison was the application of the 2-MEV model of Bogner & Wiseman (1999, 2006) originally developed for the age-group of adolescents. Subjects in this present survey were adults, specifically pre-service and in-service Biology and Language teacher. The study was an integral part of the three-year European project BIOHEAD (Biology, Health and Environmental Education for better Citizenship) with partners from all European regions and the adjacent northern African countries. We used the original dichotomous framework of the 2-MEV model (Preservation and Utilization) in order to investigate the environmental attitudes of about 6400 teachers across 16 countries (see above). We identified the hypothesized two orthogonal, robust and independent factors of Preservation and Utilization. Attitudes in the involved countries mainly differed with regard to the Utilization dimension, as the impact of the socioeconomical contexts is prominent. Nevertheless, we draw also specific attention to a more subtle variation among countries connected to a teacher’s status and its subject specialisation independent from the variation between countries. As an application, we investigated the structure of pre- and in-service teachers’ environmental attitudes throughout 16 countries. We ascertained a two-dimensional Preservation / Utilization structure and demonstrated the influence of local socio-economical frameworks, as the conceptions of teachers from European and non-European countries clearly vary with regard to the Utilization dimension, while there does not such a strong variation exists along the Preservation dimension. Moreover, the discrepancy between countries can be related to the variation of political views regarding economical liberalism (Munoz, Bogner, Clement, Carvalho 2008). Furthermore, an orthogonal analysis allows a removal of variation between countries but still exposes the two dimensions of Utilization / Preservation; hence this structure is not a pure by-product of the variation in conceptions across countries. Another imaginative result lies in the concepts’ variation across teaching groups which is still significant when the variation between countries statistically is removed.

The classification of colours into “alarming and serious” as opposed to “reassuring and playful” is applied for experimentation on architectural model perception. The distinction was corroborated by studies on physiognomic perception (Bonaiuto, 1978), on fairy-tale illustrations (Biasi & Bonaiuto, 2006), and in the “drawing recalling” of personal stress or comfort situations (Biasi & Bonaiuto, 1991, 1997). The colours of the first category mainly include black, grey, purple and olive green; while the opposite colours are mainly pink, orange, light green, sky blue and other pastel hues. Another basic concept is that conflict overload, which triggers “negative” emotions, can lead to active perceptual defence against other conflicts such as architectural incongruities. In comfort situations, which trigger “positive” emotions, the perception of the same incongruities may instead be facilitated and emphasised. Neutral hues lead to intermediate evaluations. Experiments were thus coherently designed in which models of buildings leaning seven degrees from the vertical were painted (or printed on light cardboards) with “alarming” colourings (grey-purple, olive green) or “reassuring” ones (bright pink, orange), or with intermediate shades. In the first case, the conflict overload, due to both the incongruous position and to the “alarming” colouring, reduces the perception of the inclination, while in the second case the architectural anomaly is accepted and significantly emphasised. The research paradigm has been applied with parallel criteria and results also to different architectural incongruities: such as the silhouette of a bayonet shape building, presenting a horizontal fracture line halfway up its body, with partial sliding of the upper part forward, over the lower part. Again, seven-box comparison scales were used to evaluate the degree of apparent sliding. With the same colourings as before, the working hypotheses were again comfirmed: the anomaly was underestimated (perceptual defence) or overestimated (emphatization) depending on the alarming or reassuring appearance. Neutral hues lead to intemediate evaluations. Appropriate comparison scales were used (“limits method”). Control situations were also prepared and studied, for which there is no rigid mental schema with regard to structural qualities (a crane, a cross-level bar). With the latter models, none of the aforesaid defence or emphasising effects, as functions of colours, were found.

My research is part of PhD programme in Social Psychology, under supervision of Juan Ignacio Aragonés. Connectedness with nature could be a good predictor of environmental behavior due to its participation in the structure of environmental values and to the self concept involve in it. The main research objectives are: to obtain more accurate measures of nature connectedness in the Spanish context; to describe relations between explicit and implicit measures of connectedness, environmental identity, and environmental values; and to provide a more extensive and accurate description of the self-concept involve in connectedness with nature. Three studies were designed to achieve the objectives. Preliminar results suggest convergent and discriminant validity of one scale to measure connectedness wit nature (CNS).

Many studies in cognitive psychology, human geography and artificial intelligence have investigated basic research questions of how humans navigate and orientate in space. While this research has generated very detailed models of specific determinants of human spatial processing, there has been rather little direct impact on applied fields dealing with the interaction of humans and spatial settings, most notably architectural design. The project “ArchWay – Architectural Design and Wayfinding Cognition” addresses several separating forces in architecture and behavioral science. Our basic approach is to investigate both the users of complex building settings and the architectural designers who envision these environments. On the user side we combine classic measures of spatial behavior and human spatial memory with attempts to model the real world task structure of a person navigating the complex, public buildings to find their desired goal location. The approach identifies environmental factors as well as internal cognitive processes that determine route choice preferences and strategies and, thus, shape wayfinding behavior. Real-life experiments and Virtual Reality studies will help us to assess how such features contribute to human wayfinding behavior. Measures from the architectural theory of Space Syntax (Hillier & Hanson, 1984) are currently employed to analyse the experimental settings and thus identify systematic relationships between building properties and human wayfinding behaviour, e.g., via newly-developed route-based measures of spatial properties. Regarding architectural designers our aim is to understand cognitive aspects of the underlying processes of designing for wayfinding. It is largely unknown how architects reason when they try to integrate wayfindingfriendly factors into their designs. We uncover the relevant aspects of wayfinding issues in architectural design processes by capturing design knowledge, design guidelines as well as process models of wayfinding design. Interviews and focused experiments on design behavior help us to understand specific tool support requirements for designing wayfinding-friendly environments. The presentation of this paper at IAPS 2008 will provide an overview of the different techniques employed in the first three years of this 6-year-project and highlight open research questions connecting the interests of cognitive scientists, environmental psychologists and architectural design researchers.

This paper is based on 12 month research project (BW114/AWF) carried out by the Institute of Tourism and Recreation AWF Warsaw in partnership with local authority in Warsaw (2006-2007) in the course of which 18 historic parks and gardens in Warsaw were surveyed. In addition two local case studies (•eromski Park and Citadel Park, •oliborz District) were undertaken on specific themes, such as: sense of place, commercial activities, safety, pressures for change, popularity, proposed strategy of renewal (with park users interviewed). The paper shows the contemporary spatial changes in the city, particularly where these are relevant to parks and open space provision. It summarises the research programme undertaken, historic parks and gardens surveyed and their users observed (interviewed). Warsaw historic parks and gardens are now a matter of public concern. Public parks are one of the most defining types of green public space in Polish towns and cities. Their use and contribution they make to urban quality of life is undeniable. This covers a wide range of factors (enhancing natural and historical environment, enriching biodiversity) together with accomplishment of recreation needs, sustainable tourism development and education role. Moreover in the rapidly changing urban scene historic parks and gardens are seen these days often as a source of local identity, territory landmarks and as symbols of continuity and stability. The paper argues that the many inconsistent functions implemented into historic landscape is one of the reasons of deterioration of urban public green areas. The current emphasis on cost-cutting and so-called “efficiency” in historic park management led to a general procommercial attitude. The example of •azienki Royal Gardens (Warsaw) proofs that this policy and numerous commercial functions in the historical landscape may be a thread to park’s sustainability (park is furnitured with restaurants, pubs, various tourist services).

I will present a model for understanding a global network of local federations (Slum Dwellers International, SDI), by drawing on Edward Soja’s reading of Henry Lefebvre in the concept Thirdspace. The SDI network takes space as it’s bounding force in the struggle to transform the living conditions of slum dwellers in developing countries. My goal is to bring together the problem of slums with socio-political art movements of the 60’s and recent urban studies. The urgent problem of slums, that follow on the rapid urbanisation process worldwide is taken as a point of departure, using Thirdspace to see how the SDI network resolves the two conflicting scales to view the city – as pointed out by Lefebvre and Soja – the macro and the micro, by making the individual slum dweller an actor in a peer to peer exchange, while at the same time creating a social space for political struggle (in the city and globally). Through this process power is shifted from governments, international organisations and professionals to the lived space of the inhabitants. The paper is built on a case study from a slum upgrading effort in an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya that I undertook in 2003.

This paper examines the relationship between crime, perception of security, land use and type of housing unit in two typical residential boroughs in Porto Allegre, namely, Menino Deus and Rio Branco. Data related to occurrence of street robbery and residential burglary was collected in the Public Security Department of State of Rio Grande do Sul, for a period of tem months and through questionnaires applied to a sample of 123 residents in Menino Deus Borough and 86 in Rio Branco Borough. This method also allowed the gathering of information concerning residents’ satisfaction levels with security. Land use identified as residential or non residential as the types of housing units, if houses or flats, were obtained through the Municipal Department of Planning. Data was registered in ArcGIS, allowing the generation of maps and the consequent visualization, for example, of the spatial distribution of the two type of crimes, as well as in the SPSS/PC software, where data was statistically analyzed. Results reveal, for example, the impact made by land use and type of housing units on occurrence of crime and in the perception of security, allowing a better understanding of the relationship between street robbery and residential burglary and some physical characteristics of the urban space.

This symposium examines the generalizability of environmental attitudes across cultures, time, urban versus rural regions, and methodsof psychometric analysis. Collectively, the five presentations consider the stability and change of environmental attitudes in almost 20 different cultures, overa 10-year time span, and the need for considering geocultural context when interpreting the results of environmental attitude studies. Among them, one reports the results of an 18-nation study of citizens’ assessments of the state of their local and national environments,and the global environment, both currently and as they expect it to be in 25 years. Another examines this data set from a hierarchical linear model perspective, to demonstrate the value of HLM for investigating environmental attitudes. A third reports the differences between urban and rural differences in Spanish environmental attitudes. The fourth compares the preservationist and related attitudes of European and North African educators. Finally, the changes in environmental attitudes over a 10-year period in the UK and Sweden are examined, with consideration of the role of context in understanding these changes.

1. Introduction: We can still find Machiyas (Machiya: old Kyoto-style townhouse), that retain traditional style in the modern-day city of Kyoto, and such Machiyas and others are being registered/designated as cultural properties, or designated as historic designed buildings to symbolize them in the cityscape scenery. One of the most attractive factors in Machiya is, on top of its appearance, its interior. This study focuses on commercial-use Kyo-Machiyas in the central city of Kyoto, and discusses about interior design concept, architectural style characteristics, and the inheritance of traditional style, with the objective of understanding the current status and trend. 2. Study method: Subjects of investigation in this study are so-called “Kyo- Machiyas” which have been continually changing to fit culture and climate of Kyoto. Area of investigation is the inner area, which is packed with a variety of businesses, the center of development of bourgeois culture of Kyoto, and now recognized as a heart of commercial urban area in modern-day Kyoto. 3. Overview of Machiya-use-type commercial spaces surveyed: An overview of 61 cases included in the surveys is described. 4. Interior characteristics: Walls and ceilings are mostly Japanese-style. Floor finishes are selected according to the use of space in many cases. Fixtures are mostly Japanese-style. Traditional fixtures characteristic to Kyo-Machiya, such as Degoushi (latticed bay window) and wooden framed windows are retained in many cases and a marked inheritability was found. Many of lighting apparatuses and shelves are categorized as others (general ready-made products). 5. Trends in design of Machiya-use-type commercial space: A scatter chart by Quantification method III using design characteristics shows appearance as categories. Inheritability was assigned to the horizontal axis and unpredictability was assigned to the vertical axis, and the classification was made into four attributes of Kyo-Machiya, fusion, modern-Machiya, and function-oriented. 6. Summary: 1) Interior characteristics show a marked tendency of typical Machiya-style inheritance in fixtures and in finishes of ceilings and walls. Furniture is differentially used according to the owner’s concept and use. 2) Design of Machiya-use-type commercial space can be classified into two axes of inheritability and unpredictability, and into four attributes.

"The study aims to understand the transformation of both uses and representations of ""auto-mobility"" for elders aging suburb. The complexity of residential experience and meanings of “home” have been explored in relation with a decreased daily mobility. Both uses and representations of seniors’ mobility have been analyzed under the light of lifestyle. In old age, the mobility must be addressed beyond the concept of displacement. Mobility is part of the residential experience by which the elders develop self-identity, participate in social world, and emotionally attach themselves to lifestyle. This enables the individual to keep a status of autonomy and independence. In that context, the daily mobility of 22 residents of Post-War suburbs in the agglomeration of Quebec in Canada has been explored in 1999 and in 2006. On the basis of changes in their mobility uses over nearly seven years, these aged people were preliminarily selected from a 102 non-random sample. These 14 men and 8 women were aged from 62 to 89 years at the second series of interviews. According to a psychosocial approach, the subjects were interviewed in their homes with semistructured questionnaires. Subjects were able to freely discuss their thoughts on both their daily activities, places visited in the city, and their representations of automobile, urbanity and ageing. The results partially confirm the 1999 hypothesis in regards to both daily mobility’s evolution and adaptation. Some elders increased their activity space, while others saw their mobility shrink on the territory, and some others faced immobility. Freedom of choice appears as a key-component to a positive residential experience. The built environment and the lifestyle are related to both changes and adaptation mobility uses. Individuals less mobile easily adapt their lifestyles while the others, more mobile, pushed their mobility to the limits of both their physical abilities and their socio-economical resources. In the dynamic of these strategies, the inertia of both spatial and social uses, the emergence of autonomy limitations, the caregivers availability, and the ""déprise"" of social life induced five residential experiences: 1) urban space shrinking, 2) urban space splitting up, 3) urban space losing its spatial references, 4) urban space lived by proxy, and 5) urban space entering at "home"."

Concepts of fear and safety are crucial in contemporary debate on children and young people. An increasing adult fear regarding children’s and young people’s safety is noticeably having an impact on the structure of the everyday lives of these groups. Understanding the connections between conceptions of fear, everyday life and spatial behaviour is important in order to achieve sustainable urban environments in which people of all ages can feel safe and act independently The physical and social structures of cities are often pointed out as main factors that may potentially threaten and harm children and young people. Ironically, the increasing fear regarding children and young people’s safety is in itself causing a threat to these groups and this threat is often more distinct than the original source of fear. As children and young people’s independent mobility decrease and they are constantly under protection and surveillance of the adult community, children’s environmental competence, self-esteem and independence become affected. This paper focuses on the contradictions that characterise the debate on children, young people and issues of fear and safety in the city. It aims at distinguishing how adult fear put restrictions on children and young people and to understand how children and young people negotiate these restrictions with their own everyday experiences. The paper discusses how conceptions of fear may differ and coincide between children and adults and how this affects everyday life, construction of identity and belonging. The paper draws on two research projects. The first project involves Swedish and English children in the ages of 8 and 11, and the second project concern Swedish young people in the ages of 15-17. The research is based on qualitative studies, and the main focus has been to understand place experiences in regard to physical and social structures as well as emotional attachment to place. Although, there are several obvious differences between children and young people the study reveal several common overall structures that affect children and young people similarly. These structures severely affect everyday life, place attachment and ability to be a part of the community, and regard how children and young people negotiate adult conceptions of fear, adult restrictions as well as their own experiences and conceptions of what may be harmful.

We present the results of a study performed in Barcelona’s metropolitan area, aiming to examine the types, features and properties of different urban spaces subjectively experienced as dangerous by 70 city-dwellers (graduate students). Following a qualitative-descriptive methodological approach, the 125 places chosen by the subjects were described and assessed through photographs and previously structured self-reports, in terms of their physical and social cues - environmental ‘affordances’ (Gibson, 1977) - directly linked to feelings of fear and danger. The lack of lighting and of controllable exits, physical degradation (e.g. litter or broken furniture), and most importantly, the anticipation of potential offenders, the perception of isolation and the knowledge of experiences suffered by third persons, appear to be key components of localized danger. Theoretically, the study deepens in the social-psychological construction of the spatiality of danger, highlighting the role of meanings in its maintenance and transformation. The final aim of the research is to enrich the field of applied interventions that involve the design of comfortable and socially attachable urban environments.

This abstract is part of the in progress PhD research entitled “Definition of a methodology for energetic certification in residential field after energetic efficiency decrees in Construction” fullfilled for the Doctoral course of “Redevelopment and recovery of urban buildings” of the Faculty of Architecture “Valle Giulia”, University of the Study of Rome “La Sapienza”, with the collaboration of the Research Centre of Casaccia, E.N.E.A. Energetic certification is likely to be at risk of remaining nothing else but intellectual practice. It’s a fundamental question for the energetic certification system to introduce suitable technical solutions to improve buildings energetic performance and make the real estate market aware of it. Albeit it might be insufficient because the practices results, that are both energy and money savings, are required to be transparent and easy to read from final users. In this specific way, the energetic certificate proves to play the leading role in the whole process as official recognized tool, otherwise the procedural diversification, both on a large and on a small scale, can compromise the tool effectiveness. Keywords of this paper: energetic certification, existing buildings, available methodologies, calculation praxis, simplification, buildings energetic performance, diffusion process, citizens’ needs, program targets, technical problems.

Looking at the satellite image of Europe at night we can have the perception not only of light pollution, but also of European urban sprawl. This sort of quick look about landscape organization leads to a series of research questions to investigate the level of social justice behind urban sprawl. Starting from the European Landscape Convention, the present paper aims to explore the relationships between population and landscape. The ELC brings in the European debate about landscape the issues of social justice, participation and “total landscape stewardship”; the reasons of this participative option are rooted in the Aarhus Convention (1998) (explicitely quoted in the preamble of ELC). To deal with these issues the paper develop the concept of “democratic landscape” from a social and territorial point of view, as a key for a deeper way of reading the relationships between population and landscape. Democratic landscape is the result of inclusive decision making, but it also means a way of living landscape avoiding aristocratic preservation of limited selected sites opposed to degrading exploitation of the major part of landscape. In-between the limitcases of “exhibited” and “abused” landscape, “lived” landscape arises from the interface of: a landscape that is in every place and in every daily life context, not only exceptional ones; a landscape that belongs to all people, not only to élites or landscape experts; a landscape that changes due to both regulated and selfregulated processes. Participation in decision making processes as well as a high shared awareness of landscape values seem to be necessary steps, in order to transform “lived” landscape into an authentic democratic landscape, expression of territorial justice. The theoretical approach of the paper interfaces the case study of Veneto region in Italy, typical area of urban sprawl. The paper questions the configuration of power behind the tacit pact transforming the Venetian landscape in the last decades, to explore the relationships between landscape diversity and territorial justice.

Affect Control Theory (Heise, 1976) is a dynamic framework for understanding, explaining and researching social behaviour and experience in settings (Heise, 1979). In this presentation, an extension to the Affect Control Theory framework is introduced that enables the conceptualization and investigation of the influence of variations in the physical design of settings. Three primary developments to the Affect Control Theory framework were required to extend the theory for the investigation of the influence of physical design on social interaction. These three extensions to the Affect Control Theory framework are articulated within a diagrammatic representation of Affect Control Theory, called the Affect Control Theory Conceptual Architecture (ACTCA) (Lulham, 2007). The Affect Control Theory Conceptual Architecture (ACTCA) is proposed as an applicable, contestable and scientifically valid framework with many potential applications in environmental psychology research.

The symposium will discuss the work of researchers in both the United States and Australia who have been exploring how evidence-based design and research on health informatics can contribute to our understanding of how care is delivered at the bedside; and how research findings can help shape national health guidelines that have the potential to improve quality of care through better design. Specifically, the three speakers will discuss 1) the relationship of nursing unit design to communication patterns among nursing staff, and how such communication is related to informal learning, the development of necessary skills, and job stress; 2) how nurses and doctors interact over the course of a nursing shift, and the different communication channels (face-to-face, electronic) are used and how they affect work patterns; and 3) the role evidence-based design guidelines can play in promoting better quality of care and more effective and efficient use of hospital facilities.

The research-based design to be presented in this poster is the work of four young architects based on the research they will conduct during their winter training at Shehayeb Consult just before graduation. The subject is the rehabilitation of a traditional hammam complex in a popular neighbourhood on the borders of Historic Cairo . This heritage rehabilitation project concerns complementing the existing Historic hammam with supplementary community services in an attempt to ensure cultural diversity among clients instead of depriving lower income communities of one of their key social and economic assets. In order to strike a balance between the economic viability of the hammam, historic conservation, and local community ownership of this traditional activity, the research explores the addition of supplementary community activities; a ceremonial facility, a garden, a women’s gym and a daycare. The latter are the result of previous investigations within the community as part of the scenario-making process of the project. Based on interviews with community members and observation of the desired activity patterns as they happen elsewhere, the students will prepare space program sheets for each activity followed by schematic designs aiming at reconciling diverging user needs, local community, other Egyptian sub-cultural groups, and tourists. This design will be verified with community members during a participatory design workshop held in the vicinity of the hammam. The influence of culture on perception, cognition, wayfinding, levels of desired privacy, of environmental press, and territoriality, will be addressed to maintain collective perceived ownership and at the same time be welcoming to outsiders.

Research problem and context Traditionally, healthcare facilities were built with the emphasis on the functional delivery of health care. However, since research has shown that the built healthcare environment can impact the health and well-being of patients, more attention is being paid to the psychological consequences of architectural choices. Such psychologically supportive environments are also referred to as healing environments. Understanding physical environmental stimuli in healthcare facilities will allow us to create environments that positively affect the health and well-being of patients. In addition, understanding the underlying processes causing these effects may help us to design healing environments more efficiently

Thermal insulation of external walls is one of the most important topics in the design and making of buildings. Internal comfort and energy savings largely depend from the efficiency of the insulation. The proposed article analyzes and presents the evolution of thermal insulators in the building industry, from their first applications, to the most innovative systems currently present on the market, describing how social, political and economic changes have influenced the tendencies of research and production and showing how actual demands of sustainability and energy saving have lead to the introduction of high-performance materials and components in the construction industry.

In this paper, we develop scale to measure the need for restoration of office employees in field studies that is not based on introspection; in particular a behavior based non-evaluative self-report scale (see Haans, Kaiser, & de Kort (2007) for a comparable application). The need for restoration scale is based on what Kaiser, Byrka and Hartig (2008) call Campbell's paradigm. It measures people's propensity to engage in restorative activities. The scale consists of multiple behaviors, which office employees can engage in, as means to fulfill their need for restoration. The probability of engaging in a restorative activity will depend on the person’s need for restoration and the efforts it costs to perform the behavior. Research has shown that office lighting can have an influence on the well-being and performance of employees (Knez, 1995; Boyce, 2003). In this research lighting effects on office employees are used as means to validate the need for restoration scale. In total 271 employees of eight offices with different lighting conditions filled out the questionnaire. A Rasch analyses was performed to calibrate the need for restoration scale. The convergent validity of the need for restoration scale was tested with existing established measures, like the fatigue assessment scale (FAS; Michielsen, de Vries, & van Heck, 2003) and Groningen sleep quality scale (GSKS; Meijman, de Vries- Griever, de Vries, & Kampman, 1985). The predictive validity of the need for restoration scale was tested by comparing the effect of the office lighting on the need for restoration, fatigue and sleep quality with multiple regression analyses. The results of the Rasch analyses showed that the items of the need for restoration scale could be described as a one-dimensional scale. The reliability of the scale was .77. The correlations between the need for restoration scale and the fatigue assessment scale (r = .68) and the Groningen sleep quality scale (r = .31) indicated that the need for restoration scale measures a comparable construct as the fatigue assessment scale and the sleep quality scale. Multiple regression analyses with personal characteristics, evaluation of the work situation and lighting quality as predictors showed that the lighting had an effect on the need for restoration, but not on the fatigue or sleep quality of office employees. Thus the need for restoration scale was more sensitive to lighting effects.

In spite of its social relevance, the study of ludic behavior under physical and social restraint conditions throughout time has not been thoroughly studied, and not until recently has it been systematically analyzed. This research sets forth a model that again considers the variable of time, where the organization of the ludic behavior is the dependent variable. Four 45-month-old children were selected from a kindergarten. The ludic and social behaviors performed in the playground were quantified. Reliability was 83%. Results showed changes in the preference for a type of game during the first year compared to others, showing a significant difference (F(1,70) =35, p=0.000; R2= .33). A conditional relation was observed, the category of negotiation promotes group playing, and it is interrupted by distraction (first year of the study) and interference (in the two following years). Data are discussed in terms of the physical and social restrictions and the social adjustment. This research was financed by PAPIIT, (IN310105)

Concepts like values, attitudes, and perceptions have successfully been used in environmental psychology to describe environmental perception and behavior. Nevertheless, this dominant individualistic paradigm has been challenged from more constructivist approaches, like discursive psychology. In an attempt to find cross-fertilization between the different theoretical fields, social representation theory (Moscovici 1961/1976) has been put forward in both social- and environmental psychology (e.g. Castro 2006). Social representations describe how different groups of people develop specific understandings (including knowledge, values, and metaphors) of an object and how they use such understandings to constitute a common reality. Social representations are socially constructed and facilitate communication by presenting a more or less commonly shared set of representations, needed to understand the signs people attach to concepts and objects (Wagner et al. 1999). Social representations can be studied on both the individual, as well as the social level. This study focuses on the individual level. Social representations of biodiversity, landscape and nature are investigated, focussing on differences between experts and lay people. To study both the structure as well as the content of these representations, a word association task has been administered to 100 experts in the field of ecology and 200 people from the general public. Respondents produced free associations with the words biodiversity, landscape and nature. Differences in the occurrence of meanings between experts and lay people, as well in the structure of the social representations are described. Results have been analysed using correspondence analyses, resulting in six (3 x 2) twodimensional plots representing the structure of social representations of the two groups (expert-lay people) for all three concepts (biodiversity-landscape-nature). Additional to this open question, a semantic differential scale was included in the questionnaire, which allows more rigorous statistical analyses. Results are helpful to understand differences in meanings attached to biodiversity between experts and lay people and the anchoring of the concept of biodiversity in the related, and well-established, concepts of nature and landscape. Understanding these differences may improve communication on biodiversity related policies and facilitate communication with stakeholders in participation processes.

The study of environmental concern has repeatedly shown the need to investigate environmentally significant behaviours. Beliefs about ecological behaviours (and the frequency with which they are performed) have become a more precise indicator of the environmental concern. This study examined the differences between residents in rural and urban zones. To do this, an expressed ecological behaviour scale (EEBS) was designed. The instrument included 24 items about pro-environmental behaviours in daily life. It was administered to a sample of 840 participants, 400 from rural places and 440 from Madrid. Across the whole sample, the three behaviours engaged in most often were: taking care of natural protected areas, extinguishing unnecessary lights, and turning off the faucet while brushing teeth. The three behaviours performed least often were: collaborating with environmentalist organizations focused on biodiversity, installing flow constrictors in water faucets, and recycling oil. Some significant urban-rural differences were found. Urban residents report paying attention more often than rural residents to energy efficiency labels when buying domestic appliances, and they use public transport more often. Rural residents separate their garbage more often, recycle packaging more often, and recycle oil more often than urban residents. In sum, these results show that a different profile exists in the ecological orientation of urban and rural residents. Urban residents seem to define ecological questions more in terms of the cost of energy, whereas rural residents seem to focus their environmental concern more on pollution. Thus, socio-structural factors (as in this study, place of residence) partly define residents’ approach to acting on their ecological concern.

Stress-related illnesses and health costs are increasing in modern societies. Nearby outdoor recreation areas are important for recreation, but little is known about their actual use and the role they play in recovery from different forms of work-related strains. This study aims to answer the question of whether the type of strain – that is cognitive, emotional, or physical - is related to different uses of nearby outdoor recreation areas. The city of Frauenfeld (22 000 inhabitants), situated in its peri-urban planning region “Regio Frauenfeld” in the East of Switzerland, was chosen as the case study area. From Frauenfeld, 656 inhabitants (53% women) with an average age of 48 years returned a postal questionnaire on mental fatigue, emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, and on their nearby outdoor recreation behaviour on workdays. Multivariate regression analysis showed that cognitive, emotional, and physical strains correspond to different nearby outdoor recreation behaviours. Thus, nearby nature is used with heterogeneous coping strategies to recover from work related strains.

There has been a worldwide growth in wind farm implementations which, globally speaking, carry a positive social image, but locally may cause popular rejection. The history of wind energy in Brazil is quite recent – the first large size wind farm (Parque Eólico de Rio do Fogo or PERF) dates from 2006 and is located on the North-Eastern Atlantic coast, next to a beach village characterized by low income uneducated population and lack of job opportunities. The purpose of our study was to analyze the social environmental impact of PERF upon the neighbouring community. In the first part of the study, 5 children were offered cameras and instructed to photograph 6 places they liked the most and 6 places they liked the least in their community. In the second part, 32 resident adults of the neighbouring settlement were interviewed as well as other relevant people, such as members of the municipal government and the construction company. The 5 children had a positive image of PERF, since they all photographed it and ranked it either first or second among the most liked places. Even though adults also see PERF with a positive image, they state that most benefits to the community took place during the construction phase, when a great number of direct and indirect job opportunities was generated. Nowadays, locals have little contact with PERF. Residents with higher levels of education point out that PERF could have provided permanent benefits to the village, since it is an underprivileged population with lack of basic services, such as health and education. PERF could also play the role of an agent of environment caring practice. We could not find any explicit sign of rejection towards PERF. This may be due to low levels of education of local residents; but the experience accumulated by planners and builders about other people's opposition to wind farms may also have played an important role, for they have been careful in that regard throughout the process. Even so, residents did not participate in the decision making process concerning PERF. Given the recent wind farm history in Brazil, these results ought to be taken cautiously, and additional studies must verify similarities and variations in the way Brazilian communities react to this renewable source of energy.

Diversity has become one of the new doctrines of city planners, urban designers, and architects. This paper calls for a fresh look at urban diversity by arguing that while it continues to be at the center of recent urban debates, little is known on how urban space diversity can be achieved. Concomitantly, it attempts to offer answers to these questions: Can planned public urban spaces produce social diversity? What are the aspects of genuine diversity that can be planned for and what are the others that can be attained only spontaneously? With the goal of unveiling lessons learned on urban diversity from the decision making processes and the resulting public urban spaces, the purpose of this paper encompasses several objectives. It aims at providing a conceptualization of urban diversity and elaborating its underlying contents and mechanisms by exploring the variety of meanings adopted in the urban literature. Resulting from such a conceptualization, the paper establishes a model for discerning urban space diversity. In turn, the model is mapped on two celebrated projects in order to verify its validity. The two projects are Cairo's Al Azhar Park and Melbourne's Federation Square. The methodology adopted in this paper is based on inductive analysis of the urban literature developed by urban designers, planners, and sociologists. It focuses on contrasting the 1960s and 1970s literature with the more recent arguments. This procedure fosters the establishment of a theoretical base for conceptualizing diversity which contextualizes its intellectual and practical aspects. Deduced from such an analysis a model is conceived to understand diversity and outlines its underlying aspects. Mapping the model on Al Azhar Park and Federation Square projects is a necessary step to verify its validity. Notably, while discussing the two projects involves a descriptive analysis, mapping the model is based on tracing diversity aspects in the published literature on the projects as well as onsite observations. Conclusions are drawn to frame up lessons on how diversity is achieved in different contexts based on the sociopolitical environment within which projects are created, to recognize whether planners, urban designers, and architects can actually achieve diversity, to highlight and define aspects of urban diversity that can be planned for while articulating other factors that acquire meaning overtime based on the spontaneous use of urban spaces

Most of the conceptual and empirical approaches that have investigated the effects that physical design and social factors have in people’s perception of safety in residential neighbourhoods (Newman 1972, 1996; Taylor and Harrel, 1996; Skogan, 1990; Van Beek Gert, 2004) do not consider risk perception as a key component of place evaluation, which is believed to significantly account for perceived safety. Research findings suggest that disorder is more strongly related to risk perception and that the latter is a better predictor of fear of crime and perceived safety in residential neighbourhoods. It seems that perceived risk is one of several important components in explaining fear (Ferraro, 1995; Jackson, 2002; Wilcox and Land 1996). A study with 120 students from a British University, was conducted to explore the role that risk perception might have in the (dis)order and perceived safety relationship. Three photographs from a deprived place in England were used. A panoramic view of The Actual Place, with no people, was taken at daytime. By modifying its physical features, two variations of the place using a computer design programme were created: A Degraded Place and an Improved Place. A questionnaire was also developed in order to measure perceived physical and social disorder, risk perception and perceived safety. Results showed that photo manipulations made to the actual place did work as they created three places with significantly different levels of physical and social (dis)order. Only few significant differences by gender were found. Using multiple regression, it was found that risk perception is a better and stronger predictor of perceived safety than perceived (dis)order, especially in the degraded and the actual places. Overall, it seems that the level of degradation is important in providing cues about the place and people living there, although there are other psycho-social factors that make people think about how vulnerable they are, their ability to face the risk and the disposition they might have to accept or reject the risk. Risk perception, as an intuitive and a subjective evaluation of the hazard, helps people to predict the level of danger they may face, and as a consequence, accept or reject the danger.

This study is placed as fundamental research of the intelligible architectural-urban design. And in this paper, we discussed the space cognition when take the relation of human’s body and multiple visual objects as our study object. We considered the possibility that the visual changing phenomenon generated from body moving might be used as criteria for distance cognition. The experiment was carried out in a simulation environment which was a simplified modeling of the visual phenomenon in the real environment. In the experiment, the observer had to tell the relations between the object and standard stimulus in numbers and what their conclusion was based on. The experimental result proved the possibilities that people might cognize a distance by observing the visual changing phenomenon generated by body moving. However, it is also noticed that the cognitive result was affected significantly by the observers’ criteria used in distance cognition process. There are five kinds of cognition criteria when classifying by their characteristics. “Relative sinking amount” criteria: The observers tend to simply use the image of sinking amount as the resort of judging the distance. “Relative sinking speed” criteria: The observers estimated a distance by observing the relative speed change generated by the motion of the observation-point. “Stepping analysis” criteria: The observers always divided the whole process into several steps and chose the proper visual elements for every step to cognize a distance. “Multi-observation” criteria: The observers used several observing elements for one distance cognition. “Direct perception” criteria: The observers used few concrete visual elements like “sinking amount”. Instead, they always observed “moving things”, “appearance of approaching” etc for distance cognition. In generally, there is a tendency of underestimation when the given distance is in the middle or long-distance. However, the observers, who used the “direct perception” criteria, often overestimate the distance. The deviations of the cognition distance to the given distance are different due to the cognition criteria. The maximum deviation is occurred when apply the “relative sinking amount”; in contrast, the minimum one is generated when utilize the “direct perception” criteria. In other word, we obtained more accurate cognitive distance when the observers observe the overall visual changes and cognize the distance from the status of visual objects in motion.

The starting point of this research is the awareness of the need for full committment of all the social actors to the implementation in Italy of Decree Law 22/97, transposing the European Union Directives on waste disposal. The research aims at understanding the relationship between quality of the service offered and citizens’ sensibility about the segregated waste collection process. The sample is drawn from citizens living in Sicily, in Southern Italy. According to the official data, in fact, the percentage of citizens engaged in segregated waste collection is lower in Central and Southern Italy than in North (A.T.O. Ambiente CL1, 2007). A questionnaire was purposely created; it uses a 5 point- Likert scale and has two sections: the first one aims at investigating into perceived quality of the offered services, the second one aims at defining individuals’ attitudes towards segregated waste collection (Mannetti, Pierro, Livi, 2004).

The use and appropriation of public spaces are one of the fundamental aspects in the studies on the daily life of the people who live in the city. The experiences are diverse due to factors such as age, sex, social class and ethnical identity affect experience and perceptions of urban life. From a sociocultural perspective, public spaces are defined as places of interaction of social encounter and interchange, where groups with diverse interests converge (Borja and Muxi 2001). The sense of place considers the place as a social construction or a subjetivation of the places as a manner to analyze the way “space”, understood as something abstract and generic, becomes a “place” due to the experience and actions of the individuals who, living it daily, humanize and fill it of contents and meanings (Massey 1995). This study, framed within the qualitative paradigm, presents as an advance some results of a mayor research which has the goal of knowing the experiences of the citizens at the public spaces of their neighborhood and the city as well the environmental appraisal. A close and open-ended question questionnaire was applied to an intentional sample of 36 subjects in two organizations. They were selected because of their position in them, and their place of residence in the city of San Cristobal, Venezuela. Urban social life of subjects goes through public, parochial and private realm. Although the traditional public spaces are still significant in their environmental experiences, and they are still used frequently in their neighborhood; there is a tendency towards the privatization of recreation due to the influence of imaginaries of fear, as consequence of insecurity, shortage and deterioration perceived at the existing public spaces in their residential neighborhoods and the city. Consequently, a progressive process of appropriation of contemporary public spaces (informal closed spaces) is observed. However, they have not acquired the relevance and resonance of the traditional public spaces that compete with them yet. Regardless of the subjects’ expressed interest to participate actively in the future development of their neighborhood and the city, most of them do not perceive it as part of their future projects.

When trying to find an urban facility such as a station in an unfamiliar place without a map or guide signs, we must rely on visual clues that we associate with the destination. In other words, we are directed by cognitive schemata that are theoretically shared by members of the same culture. Although major cities in Japan are well modernized and seem quite similar to Western cities, they still have cultural landscapes with latent clues that are hard to detect for foreign visitors. Since Japanese recognize most of these clues unconsciously, not even they can easily identify what they are. Given rising globalization and growths in the number of foreign visitors, however, a better understanding of differences in cognitive schemata for locating destinations should prove useful toward making urban spaces more navigable while preserving their cultural landscapes. Our experiment thus sought to determine who shares what visual clues for finding certain urban facilities. As stimuli for the experiment, photographs of streets taken at various places in the Tokyo metropolitan area were turned into composite images that were modified by adding or removing such elements as sign boards, human figures, and roadside trees. Subjects were then asked to rate each photograph according to the degree of likelihood that the street leads to one of seven urban facilities: a station, a university, a bank, a convenience store, a fast-food restaurant, a fashionable boutique, and a government office. The subjects were university students with varied cultural backgrounds (10 Japanese and 10 non- Japanese). After the session, each subject was also queried about his/her way-finding strategies, selfevaluation of performance in the experiment, and past living environments. The results revealed that Japanese and non-Japanese subjects shared cognitive schemata for some facilities (e.g., fast-food restaurants)—i.e., they clearly associated the destinations with certain specific components (e.g., sign boards) or general impressions (e.g., crowded small buildings) in a street scene. There were also other facilities (e.g., universities) for which the Japanese subjects shared cognitive schemata, while many foreign students did not. This suggests that such facilities need to be provided with more guide signs to assist foreign visitors.

There is a growing literature on children’s environmental choices and how they may affect self-regulatory processes such as emotion regulation. However, since the physical features of a specific playground area are generally confounded with its social features (such as social density and characteristics of the child who plays there), it is not clear whether children choose to play in a particular location as a function of its physical or social aspects. The present study was designed to examine whether children’s choices of where to play were affected when the same physical features were associated with different social features. If the physical features of a playground are primarily responsible for children’s choices, their responses should be the same regardless of whether the social features are changed. However, if social features of an area are most important for children’s choices of where to play, their responses should differ when the social features are different. A total of 21 girls and 10 boys in third grade, 7 girls and 12 boys in fourth grade, and 28 girls and 42 boys in fifth grade were shown two models each of two school playgrounds that contained different configurations of grass, asphalt, trees, and play structures. Neither of the playgrounds resembled their own school playground. The two models of each school playground had different patterns of social density represented by means of small figures of boys and girls placed on the models: one represented a typical social density pattern with most of the figures located in public central areas of the playground (such as open grassy areas and on the play structure), while the other concentrated the figures in private peripheral areas (near the fences at the edge of the playground and at the edges of the school). For each of the four models, children were asked to indicate where they would choose to play when experiencing each of six different emotional states. Choices of where to play were categorized as public areas or private areas. The results indicated that children chose public areas more often for positive emotion states and private areas more often for negative emotional states. However, they did not choose different locations on either of the playgrounds as a function of the different social density. These results suggest that children are more influenced by the physical aspects of a particular location than by the social aspects when making a choice about where to play.

Architects and planners should design pleasant and healthy places to enhance public well-being. Sustainable planning can achieve that goal. Yet, studies showed architects and planners failed to plan for sustainable development. The lack of knowledge about sustainability among planning students (future planning practitioners) may caused that end. However, no study has tested the level of sustainability knowledge among planning students. This study investigated the knowledge of planning students about seven dimensions of sustainability (legal aspects, research areas, existing pre-judgements, sustainability principles in general, sustainability principles about planning aspects, sustainability principles about architectural aspects). Whether the planning students perceive designing sustainable environments as their own responsibility and what sources of information (lectures, seminars, studio classes, academic literature, magazines and visual media) they use to promote their knowledge of sustainability was also explored. 80 volunteers (from first year to fourth year) studying in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Dokuz Eylul University and 20 people who has no planning background participated in the study. Data were collected mainly by means of questionnaires. Comparisons between planning students and lay-people showed that lay-people, who has no planning education, are as knowledgeable as planning students about seven dimensions of sustainability. Comparisons between planning students in different educational levels showed that sustainability knowledge does not increase as educational stages increase. Although students reported designing sustainable plans is their own responsibility, they usually rely on magazines and visual media to promote their knowledge of sustainability rather than lectures, seminars, and studio classes. This study is important in highlighting the problem of this deficient knowledge among planning students and in listing some recommendations for planning education to improve sustainability literacy among planning students. The sample of participants in this study was derived from city and regional planning department of one university. Whether the results of the present study will apply to different schools in Turkey remains to be seen, and more work needs to be done to test the generalization of the results to various cultures as well.

We explored the hypothesis that the restorative value of a place is affected by the structural properties, i.e. a common quality not represented by the built or natural content. The visual structure of natural patterns inherently possess self similarity between scales, which can be measured with the fractal dimension, D. Fractal properties can been found also in some, built environments. Color photos and their extracted silhouette outlines from three types of environments were considered: natural restorative, built nonrestorative, and built restorative. The relationship between rated restorativeness, preference and D was analyzed. Results show a high correlation between photo preference and photo restorativeness, and significant correlation between photo preference and silhouette preference The relationship between restorativeness and silhouette D is less clear. Like in previous studies, D seems not to have a linear relationship with the other variables.

Security issues play a central role in influencing residents’ satisfaction toward everyday life in cities. Guaranteeing safety, especially (but not only) for urban residents has become the most critical problem of our time. Results from 2003 Istat report on safety showed that one Italian out of four (mostly women from underprivileged social classes) declares his/her concern and fear towards criminality and social security. Fear of crime and safety changes on the base of the target considered (gender, age, social status, place of residence). At the same time, urban physical characteristics, such as disorder and decay signs in a neighborhood influence residents’ perception of safety. Social and physical signs of incivility (such as drunk people in the street, teenage groups hanging around, homeless people, prostitutes, but also graffiti, abandoned dwellings, litter, etc.) in urban environments seem to be as important as crime itself to increase a sense of insecurity. Furthermore, incivilities and disorder could be perceived by citizens as a clue of social decay and also of a lack of a sense of the community, since both residents and public institutions do not show interest in the socio-physical conditions of the neighborhood. On the other hand, good maintenance of urban environment transmits a positive message to its inhabitants and can play an important role in influencing both crime rates and fear of crime among residents. A qualitative study is presented aiming at better understanding possible relevant dimensions and factors of Rome inhabitants’ point of view about neighborhoods’ reputation in terms of a recommendable or of an ill-famed place, and about the variables involved in the feeling of safety/insecurity and fear of crime. A sample of 20 inhabitants of the city of Rome (of one or more neighborhoods and/or different areas of the same neighborhood) have been interviewed following a structured schema about neighborhoods reputation in Rome. Questions have been developed in order to acquire descriptive knowledge on how Rome inhabitants conceive recommendable or ill-famed places/neighborhoods and to relate these factors to the feeling of safety/insecurity in urban environments.

"Background: The numbers of pets are larger than the number of children in Japan. Dog owners recognize that dog walking stimulates interpersonal relationships between strangers and acquaintances in the urban community. Purpose: To clarify whether dog owner’s personal networks sustain growth quickly and to know what the trigger of making networks is, we monitored and compared the network structures, which were created by “dog walking” and “other” regular activities such as neighbors chatting and community circles. Method: The subject locations were situated in a 2 kilometer radius of an urban residential area in Tokyo. The participant was 68 years old, and she resided in the area. She also used the area for her dog walking. Five surveys were performed at 6 month intervals between 2004 and 2006. A ""P.D.M.(Psychological Distance Map)"" was used to chart her “ego-central” networks. The procedures were: 1) draw a little circle to track acquaintances on the map, indicating psychological distance, 2) draw lines between members who know each other, 3) draw dotted lines to establish groups, 4) the circles on the map are then color coded to depict the strength of relationships. We analyzed and compared the network sizes, network densities, and strength of the relationships. Results: As a result, 1)“Dog Walking” network size expanded four fold from the first survey. 2)The “Dog Walking” network density ratio was ten times lower than the “Other” networks. Both of the network’s densities maintained the same ratios regardless of fluctuating size. 3)The strength of the “Dog Walking” relationships varied. Over half of the original members, who had weak ties in the beginning, built strong relationships over the period of this study. 4)“Dog walking” members were gathering into regular groups. “Other” network members belong to common groups such as “Neighbors” or “Community service members”. Discussion: We confirmed that “Dog Walking” networks expand quickly compared with “Other” networks in the community. The interpersonal relationships between strangers are usually very weak at first, but the relationships become stronger quickly. Gathering points stimulate expansion the network. These results are influenced by environmental conditions such as weather, season, place, time, and facilities. In this case study, we found that the function of “dog walking” promotes healthy aging and is a positive stimulus for the growth of personal networks in the community."

"ECOCERT, international body in organic agriculture certification has launched an eco-label for the urban green space : Eve. Eve stands for the first woman and symbol of the living earth. French landscape architect Gilles Clément is president of the international Eve Committee. The specifications are : - water use, origin and economy - soil management and care - biodiversity - landscape sustainable management - noise - air - recycling - no use of chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers...) and no polluting materials - environmental education PARIS has decided to change the way parks and gardens are managed in order to favour more biodiversity. The local grass and weeds - so called ""bad grass"" has gained right to stay in the parks and the streets. 100 parks has been controlled by ECOCERT during the summer 2007 of which 59 has received the Eve label. LILLE is the second French city and the third is VILLEURBANNE near LYON. But others will soon enter the label such as BARCELONA in Spain. The Eve committee intends to spread worldwide and especially in Europe a new idea of landscaping and managing green space in the city and suburbs in accordance with sustainability concerns."

In Latin America, urban concentrations are the base of growing increases in productivity, being human settlements the “platform” for growing economic-productive diversification. Benefits of this process are not well distributed. Approximately half of the population of the Region lives with lacks in basic needs. The existence of theses important and severe social and economic asymmetries in LAC are expressed territorially in human settlements, which presents deficit and extreme conditions of poverty and precariousness on one hand, and on the other good opportunities for income and labor generation and economic productive development. The perspective of urban public management is to how to organize programs, develop strategies and instruments, that will allow solving such challenge: diminishing the gap (poor and rich) by the way of acquiring higher levels of access to goods and services in a more inclusive urban environment. In other words, building a human environment that can reduce vulnerability, human insecurity and risk in urban areas. The work at ECLAC proposes an operating tool: the “Urban Sustainable Agenda. It is based on a “panorama” that analyzes the main urban and economic tendencies of the Region, and the preconditions and influences of macroeconomic development on urban dynamics. The main instrument: sustainable economic urban management tool kit, (SEUM), as a virtuous management process of positive and negative urban externalities. It takes into account five priority intervention axes, (land, housing, public spaces, public services and income and employment) in order to overcome precariousness and poverty in urban areas, boost urban economic dynamics and build healthy environments. It is understanding sustainability as a three way approach to development and project investment returns: economic, social and environmental. In this context the main core research, right now, is to measure and to internalize positive and negative externalities in urban projects. In this regards, three are the most critical aspects in public policy implementation: institutional, governance- participation, and finance.

Both biophilia and deep ecology suggest that animals, and among them vertebrates are most important in building positive experiences and emotions towards the natural environment, thus attracting ecotourists. However in temperate zones, not many vertebrates are diurnal and available for direct encounters in the wild. Here the marmot genus, and particularly the alpine marmot is proposed as a model for ecotourism. In fact marmots are among the few mammals that can be easily observed during the day. Some techniques already tested are presented.

To provide enough brightness for optical tasks is the primary purpose of the lighting. However, just making light brighter is not sufficient in Japan today. In fact, in a variety of spaces, such as restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels, many fascinating lightings are installed to make spaces interesting, and many people prefer them. One of popular method to create a desirable lighting environment is to use partial and indirect lighting, which provides non-uniform light settings. Why people prefer non-uniform lighting? One possible reason is that non-uniform lighting makes a space complicated and interesting. However, we do not highly evaluate all non-uniformly lit environments, and thus there may be other reasons rather than complicatedness. Another possible reason should be that lighting can function to boost a sense of safety. Whether we can see surroundings and whether strangers can see us are also affected by the condition of lighting. The present study examined the effects of non-uniform lighting on the evaluation of a room. As stimulus, pictures of a scale model of a room were adopted. In the model there are two lights, one lit up a stranger in the back and another lit up the near table, supposed as participants. The physical brightness of a light for a stranger (bright or dark) and a light for a participants (bright or dark), and the color of lights (cool or warm) were systematically varied to provide all possible combinations. The participants were 118 students at the Nihon University (40 males and 78 females, average age: 19.07 years). Results revealed that the subjective brightness affects the evaluations of the room, and the physical brightness of the light for a stranger is the primary determinant of the subjective brightness. In addition, there is an interaction between the brightness of the light for a stranger and the color of the lights. For many evaluative scales, whether the color of the light has significant effects on them depends on the brightness of the light. In short, the brightness of the light for a stranger can strongly affects the evaluation of a room.

The present essay consists in the post-occupation evaluation of the Edson Luiz municipal day-care center, located in a region with a low income population, at the city of Rio de Janeiro. The objective here is to present the main results achieved in this evaluation, in which were prioritized methods centered in the environment perception of the users, such as walkthroughs, semi structured interviews, wish poem and visual mapping. The methods were applied at an approach called Embodied Observation, based on the works of Varela, Thompson and Rosch (2003), Maturana (2001) and Alcântara and Rheingantz (2007). In this approach, one means to value the human being experience in relation with the environment, rescuing sensations, impressions and the researcher’s background as well as the background of the people who deeply live the place. It was found that the main space limitations of the studied construction where related to its poor flexibility to adaptations and its urban insertion in a narrow terrain, that does not give support to outdoor activities, as well as doesn´t allow any enlargement. In this way, the adequacy of the construction to the new demands, derived during its uses, becomes difficult. It was verified that these problems are related to the difficulty in effectively carrying out the urban and architectural planning in the public constructions, regarding that the proposals developed in this ambit area are, on its majority, for short term executions. For this reason the possibilities of to accomplish improvements are restricted, reflecting a context where the planning politic is still consolidating and in which the study of the relations between the people and the environment can bring significant contributions.

Schwartz (1992,1994) presents a theory of the contents and structure of human values. The theory distinguishes ten motivational types of values and identifies a comprehensive set of 56 value items. The theory and the value scale - Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) are important as they can be used to apply to the study of social issues such as the relationship between values and environmentally friendly behavior. Schwartz’s theory of human values has been demonstrated to be valid in several studies in various cultures (Schwartz, 1994). However, whether the theory has a universal appeal and can be applied to Asian culture requires further study. The goal of this study therefore, is to test the theory (i.e., the universality of the hypothesized value types) in a Chinese culture in the country of Taiwan. Two questions regarding the values contents and structure are raised. (1) Will human value items collapse into 10 motivational constructs as shown in Schwartz’s study in a Chinese culture? (2) Are there culture-specific values in Taiwanese culture which are not included in Schwartz’s 56-item list? Is there possibly a culture-specific motivational type of values (such as environmental relevant values) in Chinese culture which is not found in Schwartz’s theory? As environmental values are important in Chinese culture, ten Chinese value items developed by Kuo (2003) and two western environmental value items proposed by Stern, Dietz, Kalof & Guagnano (1995) to differentiate social-altruistic and biospheric value orientations will be incorporated with the 56-item Schwartz’s Value Survey (SVS) in the study to see if these values will collapse into Schwartz’ 10 motivation types in the Taiwanese culture.

For many years the modernist provider model was favoured for addressing the housing problem in rapidly urbanising countries. This is characterised by delivery of standardised, ready-made housing units through centralised production, based on well organised institutions, advanced professional skills and a consolidated construction industry. This approach – which was successful in a limited number of industrialised countries – was transferred to developing countries, where it has failed because of an absence of those factors that were preconditions for success. In opposition to the provider model the so called enabling strategy has been advocated, first by pioneers such as John Turner, and later by the UN Habitat, the World Bank and other international organisations. The enabling strategy is based on community-based initiatives, self-help housing, promotion of small-scale business, while authorities are to support local efforts. Although this model is advocated officially by many governments, there is often a resistance to apply it in practice. The paper explores the nature of the resistance of planners and other professionals to adopt the enabling strategy. Factors such as the following are discussed: the fact that enablement means abandonment of well established doctrines; that illegal occupation of land has to be accepted; that it reduces the power of authorities and the role of planners. Upgrading of informal settlements and self-help housing means that the status is raised of the poor – those who do not pay taxes, who invade land, who bring sanitary problem to cities. Empirical findings from Botswana – where the Development Code in 1995 was revised to fit with the idea of the enabling strategy – show that planners claim not to know the law or they do not find it appropriate to implement it. They do not want house owners to reduce setbacks, to build close to the neighbouring plot, or to provide for Home-Based Enterprises on the plot. Despite this resistance low-income earners such as female-headed households often build according to the relaxed capacity – without asking for building permits. The paper is based on literature review, on interviews with planners, technical staff, and female house owners in selected low-income housing areas in Gaberone and Francistown.

Human values and attitudes have been presented as important variables associated with behaviour that has an impact on the environment. Despite these evidences, there is still need to clarify the relationship between values, attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour, and to distinguish between environmental and altruistic values and attitudes and their effects on pro-environmental behaviour. The study presented here examines, in two methodological approaches (experimental and correlational), the role that environmental and altruistic values may assume in the prediction of attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour. The experiment, where 116 individuals participated, tested the effect of the activation of situational cues on energy saving behaviour, using conceptual priming with four conditions: environment, altruism, environment plus altruism, and control. After participate in the experiment, participants were allegedly conducted to another study that was in fact a questionnaire designed to allow the analysis of how environmental and altruistic values affect pro-environmental behaviour intentions (recycling and energy saving) and how this is mediated by environmental and altruistic attitudes.The experiment data analysis showed that priming had a significant effect on energy saving behaviour. Participants displayed more this type of behaviours when they were primed with environment, altruism, and environment plus altruism cues. For participants with environmental values, energy saving behaviour tended to be higher in the environment priming condition, while for participants with lower environmental values energy saving behaviour tended to be higher in the altruism and environment plus altruism priming conditions. This indicates that pre-existing environmental values seem to affect the extent to which the situational activation of cues affects energy saving behaviour. Regression analysis of the questionnaire data showed that environmental values contribute significantly for the explanation of recycling behaviour intention and, on the other hand, energy saving intention is predicted by altruistic values. However, these effects of values on behaviour intentions are not mediated by environmental or altruistic attitudes, despite some associations found between attitudes and behaviour intentions.The results from the study show the importance of the distinction between environmentalism and altruism in the explanation of pro-environmental behaviours and intentions.

Windows and doors in centrally heated houses in southeast England are opened less often in 2007 than they were in 1984. This is a finding of a recently completed face-to-face survey of home energy use in English households. The survey replicated many of the questions asked in a face-to-face survey in southern England in 1984. When the central heating is on, opening windows increases energy consumption, so the reduction in window-opening over the last twenty years would have saved energy. This paper explores the changes in window-opening behaviours in detail. This research forms part of the UK's 'Carbon Vision' programme on carbon reductions in buildings.

The development of pro-environmental behaviours (PEB) is becoming an on-going and important challenge. Some believe that an efficient way to increase the frequency of PEB is to make the PEB easier by making them more accessible. Others believe that to increase the frequency of PEB, we should develop selfdetermined motivation for PEB. In two studies we examined how self-determined individuals, compared to non self-determined individuals, behave in contexts where PEB were easier or more difficult. Results of Study 1 revealed that (a) the decrease in the frequency of behaviors caused by the behaviors’ difficulty was less important when people were self-determined; (b) the relationships between self-determination and easy, moderate, and difficult PEB displayed a significant relationship with PEB where the magnitude of this relationship significantly increased with each level of difficulty of the PEB. In Study 2, we examined the impact of levels of self-determination and three levels of difficulty for recycling behavior on the amount of recycling when residents were at home and outside their home, as well as the frequency of other PEB. Residents of three municipalities (N=240) that easy, moderate, or difficult access to recycling were compared. Results revealed an interaction between the level of difficulty of recycling when residents were at home and the level of self-determination. For the easy recycling condition, the amount of recyclable for selfdetermined and non self-determined individuals was not significantly different. However, for the moderate and difficult conditions, the amount of recyclable for self-determined and non self-determined individuals became significantly different as the behavior became more difficult. Also, we compared the frequency of other PEB in function of the level of difficulty of recycling and residents' levels of self-determination. Selfdetermined residents for the three municipalities indicated higher frequencies for the other PEB than non self-determined residents. Apparently, making recycling easier did not have a transferable effect on other PEB. In sum, although it is possible to decrease the difficulty of an environmental behavior and then increase its occurrence, it seems that making one behavior easier does not transfer to other PEB. However, behaviors performed out of self-determined reasons lead to higher frequencies of PEB and maintenance of these behaviors once they have been developed.

As consumers of both essential goods and luxury articles, we constantly make decisions which impact the environment. However, few people are aware of the relationship between their daily behaviour and the current global environmental crisis. Although many citizens are conscious of the need to behave appropriately to achieve sustainable development, they often do not know how to act in an environmentally friendly way. It is therefore essential that consumers be given appropriate information and be empowered to behave with environmental awareness. Environmental education for a sustainable future combined with consumer awareness as a vital role to play in this respect. To this end, a teaching strategy has been developed which bring together both perspectives. This strategy intends to raise environmental awareness and to empower people in relation to responsible consumption and sustainable development. It as also produced positive results among university students on teacher training courses.

Neighborhood parks should be attractive destinations for urban children and thus help provide a protective shield against sedentary lifestyles. This research study explores the relationship between neighborhood socio-ecological environments (influences on getting to the park) and associations between park physical environments and levels of physical activity in different age groups (attractions in the park). The impact of ‘walkable’ neighborhood environmental characteristics upon physical activity has not been well-explored in children and youth, and results to date have been inconclusive. Park characteristics such as trails, bike paths, athletic facilities and playgrounds could provide attractive destinations. Twenty parks were randomly selected from a pool of 45 in central Durham, North Carolina, a moderately-sized (pop. 205,000), socioeconomically diverse city in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. In-park activity was measured using SOPARC (System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities) for children categorized as young, middle, or older. Observations were collected over a period of 8 contiguous weeks during the mid-summer months of 2007. Environmental audits were performed to define park environments. Park Entrance Service Areas (PESA) were created using park entrances defined during environmental assessments and a ¼ mile network-distance buffer with parcel-line boundaries in ArcView GIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA) and used to analyze network connectivity, land use characteristics, sociodemographic characteristics, and crime data. Detailed case studies were conducted in the three most heavily used parks using behavior-mapping methods. Results include: 1. Analysis of park-level characteristics, aggregate physical activity measures, and neighborhood characteristics. 2. Correlational analysis of behavior setting characteristics and levels of physical activity by age group. 3. Multi-level analysis of behavior setting, park, and neighborhood characteristics, and their respective associations with physical activity by age of children.

Several studies stressed the role of environmental features in affecting people wellbeing. The first level of environmental responses could be considered the affective ones (Ittelson, 1973; Russell e Lanius, 1984). The circumplex model of affect provides a complete description of people's affective evaluations of environments (Russell, 1980). Referring to health-care units, people show an high level of environmental affective responses for units with high level of perceived environmental quality, besides the level of affective responses was found to differ in relation to the type of hospital user (Bonaiuto et al 2001; Fornara et al. 2007). This study focused on the exploration of environmental affective qualities in an Italian hospital unit. A total of 200 hospital workers (with different jobs) filled in a questionnaire measuring Environmental Affective Qualities (Perugini et al., 2003). Results show significant differences in affective environmental responses in relation to specific job. Such findings have both theoretical and practical implications.

Environmental attitudes and behaviours are two basic indicators of the way people interact with their proximal environments. These indicators have become to be very important for detecting social concern about environmental problems and for designing policies based on the principle of sustainability. On of the most important limitations of this approach is the little importance given to socio-structural variables in theoretical models. As a result of this, evaluation instruments have been more concerned about the evaluation of environmental attitudes as a result of internal processes and less as an interactive process between the individual and those stages where the environmental behaviour is implemented. With the aim of overcome those limitations, the present work introduce the “Environmental Behaviour Scale” that considers not only the more pure psychological variables of the environmental attitude but also some socio-structural factors and socialization experiences through people forming their environmental values, attitudes, beliefs, habits and behaviours. This scale includes five parts: environmental attitudes, orientation toward lifestyles, general environmental concern, socio-demographics, and finally and beliefs about behaviour consequences. The scale has been applied to both rural-urban samples at the Community of Madrid (n= 840). Results show statistical differences between places of residence. Also it has been detected that different orientation toward lifestyles are related in different ways to environmental attitudes.

The study of environmental beliefs is important in the prediction of pro-environmental behavior and in the perception of environmental problems. For over a decade, research on environmental attitudes in Mexico has been increasing, and many of such works has been done using the New Environmental Paradigm, NEP, by Dunlap and Van Liere (1978). The purpose of this study was to continue the analysis of environmental beliefs among the Mexican population and to research on the potential influence academic training has upon such beliefs. The study included 300 university students from Mexico City who responded the questionnaire (NEP scale), and a tripartite composition was obtained. The results are similar to those obtained in previous studies in terms of factor division. However, correlations compared to other studies are significantly different. Differences were also found in the natural balance factor when the students’ academic area was considered.

Researches in the Environmental Psychology consider interaction between man and the environment as the cause and the effect of modifications and adjustments involving perceptive and cognitive skills. In particular we want to make reference to the socio-cultural perspective and to Fenoglio’s ‘structure of opportunities’: the first paradigm considers man as a maker of sense and significance both in a social and in an individual perspective; the second paradigm considers the actions of man as functionally planned according to the physical and social characteristics of the environment. The object of our investigation is Mobility and it is analysed through: - a semiotic and communicative approach, according to which the individual actions take up symbolic meanings and they are considered as a form of social and cultural exchange; - an adaptation approach (locus of control), which is determined and influenced by the rules and ‘restrictions’ of mobility, the characteristics of roads and streets, and by the Highway Code. Mobility is a modern phenomenon involving crucial aspects of social interaction. On the one s ide it modifies the inter-individual and the intra-individual relations; on the other side it represents a priority in the political agenda due to its relevance for the whole community and to its effects on social life and interindividual relations. According to this point of view the ‘street’ becomes a social, cultural, intergenerational laboratory; a ‘Lewinian field’ where different forces originating from individual needs and self-interests conflict and where it is necessary to find a socially accepted way to turn them into responsible and shared behaviour. The research, carried out in Bergamo in 2006 and 2007, has also pointed out the relevance of an intergenerational approach which involves different points of view in both educational and repressive processes in order to facilitate an osmosis of social and cultural values. The experimental research has involved the University of Milan, the Municipality of Bergamo, the Metropolitan Police of Bergamo, some Nursery Schools and some Compulsory and Secondary Schools in Bergamo. The police officers are leading an educational programme with the supervision of a team of psychologists: they are testing some pedagogical kits on pupils and students but also on their families - in particular parents and grandparents - with the aim of modifying the attitudes and social values concerning driving behaviour.

The paper investigates the places of an urban region inside a Biosphere Reserve in southern Brazil and explores the potentialities for synergies between their biological and sociocultural systems. It assumes that: (i) the perception of their regional rootedness works beneficially for enhancing sustainability; (ii) current progress in place’s conceptualization helps in the quest for sustainability, since the core factors of the concept deal precisely with the relationships between people and environment. The paper works with two approaches to places: the perception of existing places; the invention of new places and the perception they stimulate. Real places are seen as socially constructed; invented places, as economically promoted. Selection of empirical regional cases is based on their: perception (real and invented places); scale (urban and exurban); and management (public or private). In the area of Architecture-Urbanism, place is a created environmental form, imbued with symbolic significance to its users. In the present shift of paradigms from modernism to postmodernism, the discipline evolves towards a more thorough concern with the philosophical implications of places on phenomenological grounds. Also, in a postmodernist view, the making and marketing of new places become increasingly accepted as influential tools to foster prosperity and well-being, by means of the economic development attributed to the creation of places. The concerted private and public management of the region’s places, and the restrained design they presently employ, are providing grounds for an affluent development and shows a wise use of the regional resources. Altogether, it seems inhabitants have learned how to work in conjunction with the environment. This hints at a clear manifestation of sustainable development, worth investigating. In all likelihood, the concept of place, positioned as it is at the very interface of physical, social, economic and behavioural disciplines, seems to provide a likely means for tackling the challenges for a sustained regional development planning.

In 1988 Carl Graumann wrote that phenomenology was largely misinterpreted, in particular by human sciences, and ?Its relationship to psychology, though historically the oldest and thematically the most intimate, has been and has remained the most unfortunate of them all?. Phenomenology was often equated with an antiscientific and sugary intimist attitude. However, looking to the past, we could say that environmental psychology contributed to creating a new arena for phenomenologically oriented research. Is it still the case? In order to put an answer to such a question, I suggest that we have to look not only to the disciplines implied, but to the cultural context in which research is situated. I would like therefore to present some reflections on the ?cultural pre-conditions? for the spread of what Graumann preferred to define as an approach or an attitude more than a method, and I would like to qualify as an epistemologic attitude

The consumption of products and services is based on a model of social and economic growth which requires the production of such products and services, the attraction of consumers, and profitability both for the producer and the consumer. The demand of products and services has the following effects: a) the intensification of production processes; b) the increase in resource extraction in order to satisfy the demand; and c) the appearance of non-sustainable models. The latter creates the need to balance demand of unsustainable products and services, and social development. In addition, the consumption of products is a social reference system that influences life styles and quality of life, as well as the acquisition of value systems linked to the consumption of these products and services. This paper will discuss some aspects regarding the impact of consumption on the environment. Impact can be measured through eco-efficiency indexes, for example, by analyzing the relationship between the economic contribution of a sector and its environmental pressure. The impact of tourism as a service can be assessed through analyzing the growth of the Raw Added Value and the quantity of water or energy necessary (with the consequent pressure on the environment) in order to maintain such a value, or the quantity of waste it generates (also with the consequent environmental pressure). Other services such as transportation, energy and construction, can also generate significant pressure on the environment that can be higher than the economic results obtained.

We conducted a first experimental study on the psychological effects of thermal baths – a topic of great interest for environmental psychology, health psychology and the study of psychological evaluation techniques. The so-called Terme dei Papi (“Pope’s Baths”), situated in Viterbo, about 90 kilometres north of Rome, were chosen as the setting. The study saw the participation of 44 young adults, both genders equally represented, aged 19-29 y. (average age: women y. 23.7; men y. 23.5). Three coach trips were made on sunny springtime days with fifteen participants each time. Each participant first compiled the “Self-Appraisal Scales”, which are 7-point bipolar scales for evaluating emotional and motivational states. They then made a so-called “Stress Drawing” – a drawn recalling of personal stress experiences, with ample drawing and colouring materials available. They then went into the thermal bath for about an hour. Immediately after they again compiled the “Self-Appraisal Scales” and made a “Stress Drawing”, focusing on the same situation recalled previously and as it appeared to the subject now. The computation of the differences between their pre- and post-treatment performances showed a significant reduction in emotions of anxiety, anger, sadness, suffering, disgust and embarrassment; a decrease also in feelings of stress, dissatisfaction and insecurity, and a reduction also for some needs such as the need for explanations and for body movement, which characterise typical levels of stress. Their nutritional needs appeared increased. The above variations, by means of the Student t test, showed levels of significance from p

All people must have access to education, work, leisure, etc. Contemplate accessibility as a whole means to supply the user with full access to information, displacement, equipment and participation in all the activities. Hotels, as buildings of collective use have a main role in the development of the tourism in the Island of Santa Catarina, Brazil, and must attend all the legal demands of accessibility. The Decree nº 5296/2004 stipulates December, 2008 as the deadline, for all the buildings of collective use to become accessible. Aiming to verify the current situation of the accessibility in residential hotels of the Island of Santa Catarina, three adapted habitation units (HUs) from different hotels were examined. The selected HUs were compared to the standard HUs and to the norm NBR 9050/2004. For such, besides analysing various documents and norms, various exploratory visits to the units were conducted, in order to collect architectural and photographic data of the detected problems.

Previous research has shown that there is a general preference for viewing natural landscapes (e.g. Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Williams & Cary, 2002). But little to no research has been done to examine the preference of greenery on residential buildings. This study aims to examine this preference, looking at greenery in terms of planting on both roof and facade, and comparing it to conventional building fabrics.

This paper deals with the issue of biodiversity in urban areas as it is perceived and communicated by professionals in park administrations and in nature conservation in Sweden. The background is the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) which states that biodiversity must be promoted and sustainably used. Biodiversity in urban areas in Swedish cities is rather high, for example where there are old trees. Disseminating knowledge about promoting biodiversity in urban areas and using it in park management organizations is a matter of communication. There is a lack of knowledge on how the CBD is implemented in urban context and it has not been covered from a communicational point of view. Based on theories on Learning Organizations and Social Psychology, the paper will discuss the communication aspect in contemporary park- and nature discourse in Sweden. How do professionals communicate on the topic of biodiversity in urban green areas? A method of a dialogue seminar was used for investigating contemporary discourse. The communication aspect is studied at a face to face level when professionals exchange knowledge and attitudes. Contradicting goals for managing urban green areas with a focus on biodiversity are discussed. Professionals with different backgrounds, working with different target pictures discuss park management and nature conservation ideas related to the goals of the CBD, implemented in urban green areas. Different professionals used different concepts but the participants were surprisingly close and used to understand each others vocabularies. There were similarities in their overall objectives for urban park management. This changed when the questions zoomed in on real examples. Another outcome was that the participants claimed they got more conscious of their own and the others’ roles and attitudes towards biodiversity and related issues as the discussions reached a meta level. Although biodiversity is on the agenda at many park departments, still there is a trust in traditions and “old” goals for park management, such as keeping the park tidy and free from weeds and dead wood. At the same time as plans and policies “talk” nicely about achieving large national and international goals, like the CBD, workers involved in the practical maintenance are not involved in the plans and parks are still maintained traditionally.

The everyday local environment of incidental spaces routinely encountered by children is an important contributor to their social development and general health and well-being. There remains, however, a significant loss of connection between children and outdoor settings and this is increasingly raised as an issue that may have long-term implications. It is now recognised as important that the voices of children should play a pivotal role in the arrangement and content of their spatial realm and that achieving this will require ways to understand children’s perceptions of place and how this contributes to individual and social development. This paper outlines UK based doctoral research to develop a range of participatory tools to facilitate exploration and evaluation of the spatial experiences of primary school age children with particular reference to their perceptions of the outdoor places they encounter in their daily life patterns. The study involved the participation of 68 UK primary school children in a longitudinal qualitative study exploring their neighbourhood place experiences which were both manifest in positive and negative recurring themes. The themes evolved from the first two phases of participation were collated into a Leitmotif code tested in a final phase by using a range of adaptive photoelicitation methods, to test a range of themes relating to place or object-specific experiences; feelings and emotional significance; social networks; and imagination and temporal aspects. The study revealed a ‘fine grain’ to the children’s neighbourhood place perception, manifest in both positive and negative experiences.

Experiential landscape offers new ways of looking at relationships between people and outdoor open spaces they use in their everyday lives. It proposes new methodologies for interpreting place perceptions in a range of open space contexts and for different demographic groups. We detail how methods derived from experiential landscape are used to explore place perceptions of primary school aged children. The research highlights the value of adopting a longitudinal, experientially oriented and multi-method approach to respond to the intrinsic subjectivity involved in place perception. The variety of techniques used demonstrates the importance of engaging with children as individuals rather than as a homogenous whole. It also reveals a fine grain of place perception which appears heightened as a particularly sensitive feature of children’s encounters with their local environment.

Frequently to the question “who are you?” the answer is “I am from…”. This means that identity can also involve belonging to places. So the question can be formulate as “what is the contribution of the significant places to our identity? In this research some important aspects of social identity theorizations are explored that can be important to understand the relevance to the place to the self-definition. The first is the idea that different levels of inclusiveness define conceptually distinct construals of the self. The second issue is related to what may determine which level of self-representation is activated at any particular time. In this context, the aim of this exploratory study is (a) to understand to what extent the reference to the place is used in the self definition; (b) to identify if the place identity can be conceptualized as an hierarchical system of multiidentifications with diverse levels of inclusiveness that are evoked in relation to the geographic scale of the situation, and (c) to identify the social identity value of different group memberships in relation to the geographic scale of the situation. Four descriptions at different geographic scales are considered, concerning the proximity of the study environment to the place of origins: (1) City Scale; (2) National Scale; (3) European Scale; (4) Intercontinental Scale. The first task consisted in the completion of the Twenty Statement Test (TST, Harley, 1970). The second task was to rate each self-description in terms of the importance of these aspects to the others comprehension of himself, and in terms of the degree of importance of these characteristics to the participant himself. The results indicated that the participants use the reference to “places” to describe themselves. However, the use of the “place” reference depends of the scale of context, and is more frequent concerning larger contexts (i.e. students abroad). The results also reveal that the geographic context influences the scale of place reference that is used in the self-descriptions. Finally the results show that the self-description importance is also related with the scale of the situation, and varies in relation to the same self-description (e.g.: Portuguese) in different scales contexts (e.g.: European or Intercontinental context). These results are explored in relation to the Self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1994) and to the Theory of Optimal Distinctiveness (Brewer, 1991).

The relationship between familiarity, public participation and environmental preferences is examined using an urban design case study. Previous research has shown that familiarity judgements certainly play a role in preference judgements. Generally speaking, greater degrees of actual familiarity are considered to increase affective responses to environmental scenes. In addition to the degree of actual familiarity, there is evidence to suggest that the degree of perceived familiarity influences preference in the same direction. However, when dealing with the design of the built environment, we are often asking people to compare an existing environment with an environment that has yet to be realised (i.e. a design). The degree of actual familiarity with a design is necessarily low for most people (apart from for the designer), but clearly the degree of perceived familiarity may be high. With this in mind, we designed a study to investigate the role that both actual and perceived familiarity had on people’s comparisons between an existing urban square and a proposed re-design of that space. The design used was the result of an extensive public consultation study reported elsewhere. Actual familiarity with the square was manipulated by using two samples: one (N=100) from the same city as the case study, and one (N=100) from a different city. The framing of the presentation of the design scenario was also manipulated, so in one condition participants were told that the design was the most popular option with local residents arising from a public consultation looking at 9 possible design scenarios, and in the other condition they were simply told that the local authority were considering the design. Participants were presented with colour images taken from photorealistic computer models of both the existing situation (an urban square being used as a car park), and a re-designed scenario (which involved removal of vehicular traffic from the square). After viewing each image, participants rated the scene on a number of semantic differential scales, and were asked to state what they liked and disliked about the scene. Participants were also asked to state the degree to which the re-designed scenario was better or worse than the present situation. Results are analysed and presented, and both the theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of situational concern and preference. There were 356 participants rated each of six natural settings using a 19 measured items questionnaire that assessed situational concern (environmental safety, self-safety, and direction), preference (coherence, legibility, complexity, and mystery), and overall preference. The study of results shown differ gender have significant different of environmental safety. In correlation of variables, the coherence and legibility had strongly positive correlations with environmental safety. On the contrary, the complexity and mystery had negative correlations with environmental safety. In additional, the legibility had positive correlations with self-safety and direction. Finally, the correlation of situational concern, preference, and overall preference had positive correlation.

When new ideas and technologies are being disseminated to new beneficiaries, the most important success factor of sustainable uptake of the innovation is – generally spoken – a high degree of presence and acceptance of the innovation in the target community or society. To establish this well-embeddedness, interpersonal communication plays a very important role. Communication about the innovation not only facilitates constant exchange and presence of the topic, but also allows for self-diffusion beyond the initial key target subjects. Additionally, knowledge is passed on, convictions and attitudes are discussed and refined and implicit norms are built. Therefore, it appears to be extremely valuable to investigate the antecedents influencing if and how frequently people communicate about the promoted innovation. The present study investigates factors influencing communication behavior about a health innovation at different time points of the innovation promotion process. Results show that the main factors influencing communication intensity are problem awareness and involvement, intention to use the innovation, normative influence, and affective attitude towards talking about the innovation. Further influence when the innovation is already in use was found in frequency of forgetting and perceiving forgetting as highly dissonant. Influence factors were fairly stable over time. Other factors such as depth of knowledge, attitude and attitude components towards the innovation itself did not show influence in the regression models. Discussion includes possible explanations, including theoretical and practical aspects, and considerations which other factors could help to understand why people talk about a certain topic or innovation and why not. An outlook will be given on ways how to facilitate interpersonal communication about an innovation in an applied context.

The bottled water industry is a profitable and still growing business in Switzerland. However, sustainable and informed consumption should lead customer’s preferences to tap water: It is provided as a high (in some cases higher) quality product with a very low price. Moreover, tap water does not require transportation or bottling—hence it produces no waste and pollution. Thus, the apparent consumption behaviour is peculiar, and the question remains: Why do customers buy bottled water, while rational reasons might lead to the tap water alternative? It seems that psychological factors play an important role when a person decides to consume either alternative. The purpose of the present study is to investigate these factors with psychological impact. At a first glance, these factors may be divided into the following four groups: (1) personal factors, (2) social factors, (3) situational factors, and (4) demographical factors. Within these general factor groups, the study in particular focuses on concepts that may be subsumed as cognitive contradictions, because these psychological processes appear to lead to curious behaviour consequences. A first literature review showed eight such concepts: (1) anxiety/worry, (2) reactance, (3) dissonance, (4) loss of identity, (5) anger/compassion, (6) inferiority/jealousy, (7) shame, and (8) inequity. Each of the focused factors is described in a mode of action model and then—according to relevant literature—transformed into questions and items. Dependent variables are the customer’s satisfaction and the consumption of either of the alternatives as well as the application of in-house treatment methods and in-house treatment devices. The questionnaire is mailed to a representative sample of the German speaking Swiss population. The sample is drawn randomly from the telephone book, and in order to receive a high reply rate the respondents will be provided with reminders. After analysis, the results will show, which of the proposed factors and concepts influence the satisfaction, the consumption, and the application of water treatments and how this influence looks like.

This study investigates the relationship between sense of community, pro-environmental behaviours and feeling of unsafety in a sample of Italian residents in Naples area. The interest for the feeling of unsafety in the urban context result from awareness that the insecurity is defined both as an objective risk of being a victim of an act of aggression in a specific environment, both as the individual perception of this risk and the belief of personal vulnerability. Previous studies suggest that individual fear of crime contributes to urban problems by causing feelings of isolation and vulnerability that limit people’s interactions with their neighbours (Hale, 1996). In fact, people who resides in communities that have more social ties, good relations between neighbors, and many civic activities appear to have less fear of crime and feelings of insecurity in their neighborhood. In this research work, we explored the sense of unsafety, using as individual level predictor gender, age, education and work; besides, at the social level, we use as social level predictor sense of community, urban stresses (noise, traffic, rubbish), social incivilities and immigration. Participants were 205 residents from two cities (Scafati and Torre Annunziata), selected on the basis of the different participation of population to the littering. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing sense of community, neighbourhood and traffic noise, urban cleanliness, and 16 items about safety, crime and fear of crime, the relation safety-immigration, the operate public administration about safety and rubbish. Regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that the different participation of population to the littering influenced the feeling of unsafety; results confirmed this hypothesis; also, perception of urban cleanliness influenced feelings of insecurity. Results were discussed within an environmental framework (McCord et al., 2007).

In our country the culture of technical planning for building projects is not widespread; this fact is connected to the lack of technical capacities among our purchasers. This problem often presents itself in the initial planning phases when faced with aspects of purely functional-technical and economic planning. Some administrations try to deal with this problem, which has a major impact on the quality and effectiveness of the works carried out as regards the needs of the users, by means of “system programming”, in other words by the definition of systems of general rules of behaviour or direction to solve problems which are of such a repetitive and widespread nature as to have an impact on building activities in entire sections. The diffusion of guidelines for the sector or codes of good practice, of unified protocols or technical recommendations, allows public bodies to exercise, in line with their technical and economic resources, the functions of controlling and directing public building activity towards strategic sectors such as social housing, student residences, health and school buildings, while also having a significant impact on private building. Many local administrations are equipping themselves with codes of practice for constructing or adapting social housing, aimed at the qualification of building activity in a sector which has enormous weight in terms of construction in the area and its impact on energy consumption and the wellbeing of the inhabitants. High environmental quality and encouraging the wellbeing of the inhabitants have an absolutely central role in these support tools for drawing up and planning interventions; furthermore these instruments have the role of incorporating all the indications and requirements of local and national building regulations which cover the various aspects of construction, above all, implementing those aspects regarding energy conservation or the optimisation of those elements relating to widespread environmental quality. In this way, alongside the traditional indicators for technical norms relating to residential building, can be placed a system of best practices, innovative suggestions for the environmental quality of projects regarding the energy and environmental functioning of sites and buildings, and on the knowledgeable use of technological solutions aimed at an overall improvement in the uses of the building and its urban context.

Many refer to the current proliferation of terror as the age of “think the unthinkable”(Bracken, 2001, 173). The latter term is not novel to society (e.g., used decades ago to describe nuclear war). Nor are we ignorant to consequences of diverse forms of warfare (of which terror is a variant). Yet, we are aware of the growing global public concern about terrorism which accentuates the need to address this exceptional threat within our communities. Discussions about how to respond to the events of September 11, 2001 and to the global propagation of terrorism have stimulated a controversy regarding the handling of such threat. Some argue that terrorism is indeed a new hazard about which the modern world, and specifically the US government, knows very little. Others believe that a history of dealing with man-initiated threats, such as warfare and crime, as well as fifty years of research on natural hazards and disasters, provide a solid base of relevant knowledge. These views are exemplified: (a) in the frequent political labeling of this threat as the new war of our era (Pillar, 2001; US Department of State, 2003) as it offers the dangers of battle (US department of Justice, 1999); (b) in legislations -- regarding it as an unlawful criminal activity (Pillar, 2001; Combs, 2003); and (c) in developing an all-hazard approach (for terrorism, natural and technological hazards) under one umbrella of homeland security (Office of Homeland Security, 2002). The paper deals with this controversy and analyzes the question of whether terrorism should be addressed by planners and architects as a new form of threat, or whether it can be dealt by utilizing existing knowledge from other domains. Specifically, this paper focuses on the utility of the research and accumulated experiences on natural and technological hazards as a potential source of relevant information to counter terrorism. It should be noted that the analysis of lessons to be learned from the studies of crime within the built environment of communities (Healy, 1983; Saarinen, 1976; Jacobs, 1961; Newman, 1972; Tijerino, 1998). The objective of this paper, therefore, is to evaluate the potential of knowledge transfer from established domain of hazard and disaster mitigation to the realm of terrorism in the built environment. To accomplish that, the paper offers a discussion of the similarities and the differences between terrorism and natural/ technological disasters. In addition, a review of existing areas of study of hazard and disaster mitigation, including specific technologies and developed policies, is presented. The reviewed material is evaluated by its relevance to the built environment and applicability to terrorism threat. The paper indicates new areas of research that need to be addressed to successfully prepare for and respond to terrorism

This study is going to address an interesting paradox of leisure activities and restorative environments in the context of a destination marathon. A destination marathon offers a specific activity (marathon) in a specific place (destination) which participants seek out for these reasons. For most destination marathon runners, the marathon, usually considered a “fun” activity- often is taken seriously, and involves pain; the destination, usually considered “attractive”- often takes place in an urban setting. This project is going to examine destination marathon runners (marathon runners who have traveled to run a marathon), focusing on what contributes to satisfying and meaningful experiences, and factors important for an ideal place for a marathon. It is hoped that the findings will help create more user-friendly and satisfying environments for running and tourism and will be useful to urban design and management for well-being.

Researchers within both Environmental and Community Psychology developed some constructs to study the relationships between the individual (or group) and the socio-physical environment. Recently, it has been suggested to integrate the main constructs from the two fields to promote fruitful advances in the explanation of the complex bond between people and the surrounding environment. Within Environmental Psychology the term “place” has become increasingly important as the unit of analysis behind person-environment transactions. Some studies showed that place attachment is associated to individual and community wellbeing. Moreover, the relationship with places has been considered as a dynamic phenomenon which changes across the life course. Some authors stressed the importance to consider the bond with places at different spatial levels and not only as neighborhood attachment. Within Community Psychology, the “sense of community” (SOC) construct describes the bond between people and the territorial-relational context. SOC is considered an indicator of community well being and has been found to increase during the life course. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between people and their environment at house, neighborhood and city level. In particular, our intention was to study the link between place attachment measured at different levels, changes across the life course, and the relationship between place attachment, SOC and well-being. A questionnaire was submitted to 323 inhabitants of Cesena (Italy), 14 to 93 years old. The strength of the attachment to the house, neighborhood and city was measured through three direct questions. Well-being was measured by the SWLS (Diener et al., 1985). The Sense of Community Scale (Prezza et al., 1999) was employed to assess SOC referred to the city. Results confirm the positive relationship between different place attachments, SOC and well-being. SOC and place attachments increase from adolescents to elderly. Neighbourhood attachment scores lower in all age groups. The relationship between levels of attachments and well being differs according to age. Among adolescents attachment to places is not related to well-being whereas among young-adults only neighbourhood attachment correlates with well being. Every level of attachment is related to well-being among adults (especially the city) and elderly people (especially the house). Implications of results will be discussed.

This paper, that is a brief report of a research in progress, seeks to explore the relationship between people education and global warming and in particular the role of large scale gaming simulations to generate new behaviours among participants in relation to the climate change problems. This research will try to answer to key important questions: is a large scale gaming simulation able to contribute in a positive way to educate people in prevention of the risks related to the complex climatic phenomena? Can a large scale gaming urban simulation improve the behaviour and the personal decisions of the participants to mitigate global warming? If this research will have a positive result, the gaming simulation utilised in this research will be used in all schools of Italy like an innovative teaching method. This research consists of three tasks: 1) Game design: the first task concerns the choice of the simulation type, the choice of the number and the target participants and the design of the game architecture. The game is developed specifically to simulate the real word in presence of events adducible to global warming. - 2) Test: the second task concerns the gaming tests. In fact, to have a representative validation of the game architecture and to rate the adaptability of the simulation to different target and numbers of gaming participants, three gaming test sessions are planning. The first was realized with 200 participants (Italians teenagers) during the First National Conference of the Climate Change in Rome (13 September 2007 – Rome), the second was realized with 50 young participants in Salerno during the “ExpoScuola” (5-11 November 2007). The organization of the third gaming test session is still in progress. - 3) Rating: the last task of the research concerns the statistical evaluation of the gaming test results and the rating of the feedback questionnaires of the gaming participants. // This research is partially supported by the Italian Environment Protection and Technical Services Agency - APAT (Agenzia per la Protezione dell'Ambiente e per i Servizi Tecnici) and CTS (Centro Turistico Studentescoe giovanile).

Gated communities in Poland. Program “secure by design” as an alternative to gating. Katarzyna Zaborska Faculty of Psychology University of Warsaw Gated communities are a new and recently recurring phenomenon in larger cities in Poland. The question of 'gating' relates not only to housing estates, but also wider areas, such as streets, which can be closed to public traffic. The purpose of this project is to study the impact of gated communities, as compared to other forms of multi-family housing, on the social aspect of life of the community members. An important objective and challenge is to find different ways of multifamily housing settlement planning and development, which could become an alternative to gated communities. A possible solution may be the program “secure by design”, which is based on appropriate spatial planning and territorial division at the project design stage, so that the space itself becomes safe. Additionally the program includes suggested forms of interactive neighborhood activities aimed at development of social ties within local community. The research framework is based on the environmental psychology theory. One of the referral points in this study is Oscar Newman's (1996) concept of 'defensible space' and the implication that a settlement can be understood not as much as a gated space, but as a 'civil space' designed specifically with an aim to enhance the development of 'neighborhood ties'. The study was conducted at the sample gated communities and at the settlement known as 'secure by design' in Poland. The research strategy deploys qualitative methods: neighborhood ties, place attachment, safety questionnaires and evaluative maps in the scale 1:500, entailing the territorial division into a private, semi-private, public and semi-public space. The results indicate that the gated communities experience alienation of neighborhood ties, and effectively a lower identification with the settlement space comparing to the communities 'secure by design', while the safety indicator is similar in both. At this stage, it is still early to arrive at a set of compelling results. However, on the basis of the comparative study entailing the gated community and secure-by-design settlement, it is possible to conclude that the latter can become an alternative form of settlement to the gated community. Also, the appropriately arranged architecture enhanced the feeling of safety among the community members.

There are urban places in Italy where good living is the norm, malaise the exception. This derives from: 1.existing material conditions: sufficient income, good work, efficient social services 2.lack of conflict factors: strong income gap or economic uncertainty 3.existing cohesion factors: civic pride, solidarity, historic rooting Such happy conditions can be spotted in the use of the city and the territory. In many ways: a)through the evident and customary care for the historic heritage b)by maintaining functions of social recognition and aggregation in the historic centre c)by containing tourist flows d)in a well organised peripheral development e)by correctly locating productive settlements in the landscape. These are the results of a development process that was able to skip the threats posed by an economic growth unaware of a parallel human and social development; on the other side, development indicators show that these places have taken full advantage of more general growth processes. Cultural, social and environmental moderation factors were obviously at work. This has happened, according to a first recognition, in a number of small centres of the Marche region. Here the size, certainly relevant in maintaining local traditions, was not an obstacle to the development of a contemporary living culture, as witnessed by the permanence of the young generation.

For several years environmental psychology has been dealing with the factors that determine ecological attitudes, especially with regard to one’s subjective values. This study aims to explore personal attitudes towards the environment, the relationship between them and values and the correlation between these variables and consumer behaviour. Green Attitude is the tool used to evaluate the subjects’ attitude towards the environment in relation to four areas: Individual Responsibility, Pollution, Cost and Sustainable Tourism. The MODE scales (Fazio and Towles-Schwen, 1999 ) are used to identify consumers’ behaviour towards ecological products. The Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) (Capanna, Vecchione and Schwartz, 2004 )to measure universal values. Preliminary results point out that a correlation exists between socio-demographic variables, such as environmental associations and value systems; furthermore, attitudes towards the environment appear to influence the environmentally-conscious consumers choices.

Purpose: Current research on restorative environments often includes healthy individuals and frequently utilizes laboratory settings to create intended antecedent conditions. Outside of the horticultural therapy literature and retrospective examination of hospital records, unhealthy populations generally are not included as participants. While this trend is reversing, these endeavors have not yet included individuals with head and neck cancer (HNCa). The purpose of this study seeks to determine if individuals receiving chemotherapy for the treatment of HNCa experience changes in directed attention, mood, and symptom distress following “green experiences”. Research Questions: This study explores two research questions: 1) can slideshows of restorative environments effectively be shown in the home setting to produce green experiences, and 2) do individuals receiving chemotherapy experience changes in directed attention, mood, and symptom distress as a result of such simulated green experiences (i.e., via slideshows of restorative environments). Method: Using a multiple baseline across subjects design, 6 participants who will receive chemotherapy as treatment for HNCa will be included. Participants will complete a 13-day home-based protocol that includes viewing slideshows of restorative environments and completing the Necker Cube Pattern Control test, the Zuckerman Inventory of Personal Reactions, and the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale. Results & Conclusions: While individual variability is anticipated, the viability of utilizing green experiences may result in significant respite from the effects of treatment in some individuals. Implications of these data to active treatment rehabilitation efforts will be discussed. Significance of Project: This work is important in that it seeks to maintain and foster human-nature relationships for those who are ill and experience reduced quality of life. Given the toxic effects of chemotherapy, individuals may not be in a position to directly seek out green experiences. Therefore, introduction of green experiences via home-based slideshows may reveal benefits to one’s perceived health, well-being, and quality of life during cancer treatment. These data may support further integration of nature-based activities in treatment and rehabilitative protocols.

Purpose: Current research on restorative environments often includes healthy individuals and frequently utilizes laboratory settings to create intended antecedent conditions. Outside of the horticultural therapy literature and retrospective examination of hospital records, unhealthy populations generally are not included as participants. While this trend is reversing, these endeavors have not yet included individuals with head and neck cancer (HNCa). The purpose of this study was to determine if individuals receiving chemotherapy for the treatment of HNCa experience changes in directed attention, mood, and symptom distress following “green experiences”. Research Questions: This study explored two research questions: 1) can slideshows of restorative environments effectively be shown in the home setting to produce green experiences, and 2) do individuals receiving chemotherapy experience changes in directed attention, mood, and symptom distress as a result of such simulated green experiences (i.e., via slideshows of restorative environments). Method: Using a multiple baseline across subjects design, 6 participants who received chemotherapy as treatment for HNCa were included. Participants completed a 13-day home-based protocol that included viewing slideshows of restorative environments and completing the Necker Cube Pattern Control test, the Zuckerman Inventory of Personal Reactions, and the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale. Results & Conclusions: While individual variability is characteristic of the study population, the viability of utilizing green experiences may result in significant respite from the effects of treatment in some individuals. Implications of these data to active treatment rehabilitation efforts will be discussed. Significance of Project: This work is important in that it seeks to maintain and foster human-nature relationships for those who are ill and experience reduced quality of life. Given the toxic effects of chemotherapy, individuals may not be in a position to directly seek out green experiences. Therefore, introduction of green experiences via home-based slideshows may reveal benefits to one’s perceived health, well-being, and quality of life during cancer treatment. These data may support further integration of nature-based activities in treatment and rehabilitative protocols.

The research deals with perception of the natural environment and quality of life, defined as “combination of material and immaterial resources, of objective and subjective components characterize the human condition” (Allardt, 1981). In particular the study aims to investigate individual’s attitudes related to green areas and public services, defined as “capabilities” (Sen, 1987), that is “dynamic and static condition to access to the resources” (Nussbaum e Sen, 1993). A questionnaire was created on this purpose, composed by two sections: the first part investigates into individual’s attitudes on green areas and public services, using a Likert scale composed by seven levels; the second one investigates on attitudes about creation of news green areas, using a Semantic Differential. The sample was drawn among different Italian cities and towns.

This paper investigates the relationship between green spaces and vegetation and residents’ well-being in housing environments for low income people, characterized by distinct urban densities and distance to city center, and dwelling types. Questionnaires were applied to residents in order to reveal satisfaction levels regarding the housing estate, quality of views from the living-room and use and the appearance of open spaces. Structured interviews were used to better understand residents’ attitudes regarding the importance of vegetation. Green spaces attributes such as area and number of trees were registered through physical measurements. Among the main results is the importance of green spaces and vegetation for residents of social housing. Moreover, vegetation and green spaces are perceived as aesthetically pleasant improving the use of open spaces and the level of satisfaction with the housing environment as a whole, increasing residents’ well-being and self-esteem.

Along with progressive growth of urban population, and notably of those living in metropolitan areas as Lisbon, urban green areas are increasingly valued in their contribution towards the enhancement of quality of life and to the promotion of sustainable urban development. This metropolitan area is home to 3 million people who use the space for living, working and recreation. Depending on the location, as well as, the design, these areas are able to provide a wide array of environmental and social functions. Several recent studies on citizens' perceptions and behaviour towards urban green areas have shown the complexity and the multidimensional character of the man-nature relationship in the city. Therefore decisions on the planning and management of green areas in urban context require not only an ecological understanding of resources but also an understanding of residents' perception and values. Based on these considerations, this paper describes 2 exploratory studies: the first aims at identifying dimensions of perception and behaviour in green areas in Lisbon, and the second, based on the results of the first, has the purpose of building an attitudinal scale to evaluate the quality of green urban areas. The first, allows isolating a group of 6 dimensions, notably natural elements, security and maintenance, equipment, users and activities, evasion, urban quality of life. These results contributed to the construction of an attitudinal scale of 40 items (in the second study), which was applied to users of one of the most referred green area in the first study. By including questions in the first study concerning the preferences and frequency of use of green urban areas in Lisbon, it enables to identify associated behaviours and to link those responses to the quality of the spaces. Despite the fact that possibility of generalization the results is reduce by using a population of university students, it allows (for this age group) to identity a set of factors, organized in major dimensions that emphasise both the importance of the nature to the human being, as well, as the factors that contribute to the attractiveness and usability of green urban areas in Lisbon.

In recent years, human health and well-being has become an important criterion for assessing the quality of natural areas and urban ecosystems besides ecological and environmental criteria. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear that human values and ecological values are not interchangeable. The growing recognition of health functions of nature thus seems a mixed blessing for ecologists. On the one hand, it strengthens the case for the importance of nature in society. On the other hand, it weakens the relative importance of biodiverse ecosystems as compared to other types of nature. In my presentation I will start with a brief review of research on health impacts of nature, followed by a discussion of the values of various ecosystem qualities for human health. I will conclude with some examples of how knowledge on the health functions of nature has been used in the Dutch context.

The negative health outcomes of the rapid growth of children's sedentary culture are clearly expressed in the public health literature. They challenge professionals, public officials, and policy makers responsible for children's healthy development to create outdoor environments that motivate children and their carers to spend sufficient time outdoors engaged in physical play. Reliable evidence is required to guide the design and management of outdoor environments inhabited by different age groups. However, children who spend time outdoors need protection from the potentially harmful effects of solar radiation. The symposium presents research findings from four studies at different scales of childhood habitat: child development centres, urban parks, and urban neighbourhoods, aimed at building the evidence base for effective design of children's outdoor environments. Cosco presents research to identify discriminatory items for a pilot tool to rate the potential of preschool outdoor play setting attributes to produce higher levels of physical activity when three-to-five-year-old children are exposed to them. Mårtensson and Boldemann apply Outdoor Play Environment Categories (OPEC) and the Sky View Factor (SVF) as tools for environmental assessment of outdoor surroundings of schools and other institutional settings. The aim is to describe how the environmental parameters defined by the tools are related to physical activity and sun-preventive behaviour during outdoor play. Moore's study is focussed on how use of urban parks by children and families can be explained by the attributes of the park and neighbourhood’s social and physical form variables. Islam's study explain how older children's physical activity is influenced by neighbourhood characteristics in an Asian megacity. The studies employ behavior-environment methodologies. Independent variables are measured with environmental mapping, GIS coding, solar radiation, and landscape diversity measures. Dependent variables are measured by accelerometers, pedometers, behavior mapping, videorecording, and social surveys. Results demonstrate the strength of multimethod strategies mixing objective, quantitative measures with qualitative measure s that help explain the quantitative results. The authors argue that such strategies are more likely to both attract public attention as well as provide policy makers with evidence.

The self-advocacy of people with learning disabilities (PWLD) is an issue of high current importance. In the UK 210,000 people have severe and profound learning disabilities, whilst twenty-five in every thousand of the population in England has a mild to moderate learning disability (Department of Health, 2001). At the most restricted end of the communication spectrum, PWLD are often forgotten members of their communities, whose label ‘learning disabled’ wrongly causes confusion and fear. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995 ensured ‘reasonable’ adjustments must be made to environments and buildings so they are accessible to all. However, DDA legislation remains a predominately physical access issue with great attention focused on the built environment and little attention given to the experience of place or external environments. Researchers argue that it is attitudes and interactions in the personenvironment relationship that have allowed our ‘disablist’ society to label and segregate members of its community as ‘disabled’. The research comprises a longitudinal study working with PWLD participants at two sites in Yorkshire and in the North East of England. This paper examines the resulting visual communication toolkit, able to unlock the experience of public open spaces by PWLD and, when used in context, aid greater social participation.

This paper focuses on polychromy of buildings in a historical context. It analyses the coloring of Brazilian urban heritage based on the study of historical districts in four cities located in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The aim is to reveal the coloring characteristics of different historical periods, determine the chromatic typologies of the corresponding building styles and verify the relationship between familiarities of urban environment with certain type of historical built heritage and historical chromatic typology according to its actual perception and evaluation by citizens. The investigation consisted of two consecutive steps. First, the chromatic study was performed through the evaluation of three groups of buildings with styles representing three overlapped historical periods: colonial, eclectic and pre-modern periods. The individual building data for each architectural style were collected by complementary techniques such as, stratigraphic prospects of buildings, survey of historical records and descriptions, analysis of images and study of projects with colored façades kept in historical archives. Second, 280 questionnaires with photographic images of a systematic sample of 27 historical buildings and 60 chromatic historical models were applied. Quantitative data was analyzed by statistical means. The results support the assumption that buildings with distinct stylistic architectural characteristics present identifiable and consistent color attributes (in terms of palette, structuring and dynamics). The methodological procedures adopted in the investigation allowed the identification of local and temporal chromatic characteristics of the built heritage, as well the elaboration of the typical chromatic schemes of each architectural style. The findings derived from the analyses of perception of chromatic typology support the assumption that there is strong relationship between familiarity with urban historical environment and both evaluation of buildings of different styles and preferences for some attributes of color patterns such as, chromatic component, color distributions on facade and complexity of color compositions of typology.

The home range is particular to the type of residence and the type of urban, suburban or rural environment inhabited. This paper will present home range from the perspective of a typical early 20th century house from a mid-sized city in the Midwestern US. A territorial gradient that was developed based on that setting will be presented and discussed. That perspective will then be challenged by examining other environments that represent other types of US as well as European settings. The comparison will give rise to a discussion of such issues as autonomy and control; risk and identity; intimate, private and public realms; the impact of spatial dimensions; as well as responding to and making environments.

This paper presents fieldwork results of a PhD study. The study on “Homeowners’ Responses to crimes of burglary and home robberies in Dar es Salaam” uses case study strategy and applies qualitative methods to capture data on homeowners’ responses to crimes in planned areas. The study is multiple cases one and Dar es Salaam is the study region. The study employs qualitative methods (in-depth face to face interviews) to capture information on the responses by homeowners whether tenants or owner-occupiers. The three sub cases were selected purposefully and studied as they differ historically and locationally in relation with the City Centre. They also differ in that; the homeowners are different in terms of income and ownership of the houses. The results from fieldwork show that, in the two cases that are far off from the city centre, the responses to crimes of burglary appeared to be similar. In both areas, homeowners build wall fences around the houses and use of metal barricades on windows and doors, thereby cutting off completely the views from the streets. In addition, they install barbed wire, electric wire or broken glass on top of the wall fences to forestall climbing. For the housing that is near to the city centre, the responses include closing of alleys between plots by connecting adjacent buildings or homes using walls and creating courtyards behind the homes but allowing verandahs, doors and windows to open into the streets and pedestrian routes

The issue of place attachment and mobility was frequently studied with reference to university students moving away from their home country. This situation may provide interesting opportunities for a personal growth, but can also be a source of adaptation difficulties, thus leading to psychological troubles, and making people desire to go back to their home country. That’s what is defined homesickness. Homesickness probably plays a role in the relationship between the old and the new place of residence, thus influencing multiple place attachment. The literature on this topic did not clearly show how a strong affective bond with the home country can influence the psychological attachment to a new place. With reference to students, some studies showed the negative influence of homesickness on the development of a psychological attachment with a new place of residence. Our study was aimed at exploring the psychological processes influencing the relationship between the old and the new residential setting in students after transition to university. We also considered the role of personality, situational and environmental variables (distance between the two places and size of the new place) in the development of homesickness. Students from two Italian university cities participated in the study. We developed a questionnaire measuring the following variables: place attachment to the home country and to the new place of residence; susceptibility to homesickness and actual homesickness; socio-demographic and residential experience variables. Factor analyses showed the existence of different dimensions in the affective bond with the home country, referring to personal identity, practical resources, and social relationships; a general dimension of attachment to the new place of residence; and three personality dimensions referring to the need of social support, rigidity and coping difficulties. A regression analysis showed that students having stronger social relationships in their home country and a lower level of place attachment with the university city suffer from feelings of homesickness. Both personality factors and environmental/situational variables showed a significant impact on the effective presence of homesickness. Finally, students who have suffered from homesickness earlier in life experienced stronger difficulties in the adaptation process to the new residential situation. Implications for the study of place attachment will be discussed.

The authors, after an historical, ethical and cultural examination of the hospital evolution in the centuries, consider the evolution from traditional medicine to the wellbeing medicine and the increase of services and healthcare demand strongly for chronic-degenerative pathologies that are constantly increasing. The need of professional multidisciplinary network in order to find new hospital solutions are analyzed and described by the authors. At the end, some hypotheses are proposed depicting the future medical and scientific scenarios and the new health care systems related to the urban context.

Although research on the field of environmental psychology over the past 20 years has generated an interesting exploration of the meaning(s) of home, it was primarily based on the subjective, personal experience, rather ignoring its sociocultural milieu.Thus, a context-sensitive focus is important to a better understanding of home by contemporary psychosocial research (Moore, 2000). In this respect, the main objective of the present study is to explore the interrelation between house attachment, as reflecting the subjective experience of one’s own private dwelling place and social representations, as reflecting the collective housing experience. The main theoretical framework of this study is situated within the phenomenological paradigm of the subjective experience of home and it is primarily based on the transactional psychological theories of Place Attachment (Giuliani, 2003). The present study further employs Social Representations (Farr & Moscovici, 1984), both as a theoretical and a methodological tool of social psychology, in order to examine the interaction between the subjective and the collective experience of home. Thus, the basic objective of this study is an attempt to expore the meaning(s) of home in its individual as well as in its social aspects within a particular cultural context, that is of a modern urban city setting.

"There is evidence that caring for green areas in the interior and exterior of a dwelling can become a source of daily pleasure and tranquillity. The focus of our research is upon the influence of green areas on housing’s internal inhabitability. The purpose of this study was to explore people’s emotional reactions in terms of Merhabian and Russell’s (1974) states of pleasure, arousal and dominance, in relation to the existence or not of natural green areas and flowers in the environment, both inside or outside the dwelling, understanding for green areas: grass, shrubs, foliage of plants, trees, and flowers, all of them natural. Additionally, we explored the specific reactions to vegetation, using another scale designed for this project. The sample was nonprobabilistic intentional, consisting of 220 inhabitants of dwellings from Mexico City and St Andrews, Scotland (100 from Mexico City and 120 from St Andrews) with an age ranging between 16 and 85 years. An explanatory, co-relational, expostfacto, multivariate design was used. The instruments were a 59 item Likert Scale (Green areas and housing inhabitability) which was designed to measure the importance of green areas for the inhabitability of the inner and immediate external environment of dwellings. And the other one was the Mehrabian and Rusell’s (1974) ""Semantic Differential Scales of Emotional State"", which measure pleasure arousal and dominance. A descriptive analysis and a multivariate linear regression were carried out to analyze the incidence of culture in people’s interaction with green areas and flowers vis-à-vis the inhabitability of the house as measured through their emotional states. We found significant results with the scale of “Green Areas and Housing” and the “Semantic Differential Scales of Emotional State”. The variables pleasure and activation were significant in relation to perception towards greenery, which entails that the relations between both scales and both variables have a direct relationship between green areas and psycho emotional variables related with pleasure and activation. Concluding, the main contribution of this study was to demonstrate that the restorative environments are important for the housing inhabitability, no matter the size and the nature of the green areas, the important thing is just have them."

An experiment is described where the participants were presented with pictures of four different objects and were also allowed to handle the objects while their brain activity was recorded by means of EEG. The objects were also evaluated by means of semantic scales. When the objects were visually displayed significant effects appeared in the posterior part of the brain, but when the participants were allowed to handle the objects pronounced effects appeared both in the anterior and posterior cortex. The most important conclusion from the study is that the aesthetic properties of common objects will influence the general activity of the brain in a systematic way similar from one person to another.

The paper presents the basis of a project recently funded by FORMAS, Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning. Although there is consensus among planners and politicians that dense and compact cities are better for the environment than sprawling urban landscapes, much of what is currently being built is characterised by low urban density, ‘sprawl’. Generally researchers agree that ‘sprawl’ in industrialised countries is driven by rising average income and decreasing transport costs. Urban households can afford to demand larger dwelling units as well as daily travel long dis-tances. Individual decisions are aggregated into a force that governs the development towards ’sprawl’. The aim of the project is to analyse how urban environments can offer desired qualities, by studying households’ actual use and valuation of opportunities for work, service, leisure ac-tivities, culture and education within areas of different urban density. The contribution of the study will be a deeper understanding of what urban density means in the daily life of house-holds. The study will employ theories and concepts from planning research and environmental psy-chology. Urban density is a key concept. Range and variety of urban functions are then impor-tant additions to measurement of physical densities. Another key concept is ‘affordance‘. ’Affordance’ is here a quality or asset within a specific environment, which can be perceived and used by an individual for carrying out a certain activity. The main study is a survey covering around 2000 households within the Stockholm area. Four areas will be chosen, and around 500 households in each, admitting control for socio-economic subgroups. Study areas will be selected to illustrate different urban densities and structure, from inner city to garden suburb. The survey will cover blocks of questions con-cerning the most important affordances inherent in the actual environment of the household, such as place of work, shops, schools and social networks. The questions will be constructed to grade perceived, potential, shaped and utilised affordances in their environment. The concept of ’affordance’ will be tested as a tool for structured comparisons between urban areas regarding different aspects of density. The availability of affordances in different urban structures will be described and relationships between density, in all its aspects, and life styles can be tested.

Urban green spaces have different functions, reaching from recreational use over the conservation of urban biodiversity to hazard mitigation. The quantity, quality, pattern and distribution of urban green spaces give indication for life quality in a neighbourhood of a city. Their monitoring and assessment can therewith be used as indicator for social characterization of different areas in a city and for life quality studies. Also, it indicates the ecological value of neighbourhoods in an urban agglomeration, an increasingly important factor in sustainable urban development. Besides that, green spaces are an important element in the water cycle as vegetation cover leads to transpiration but also absorbs rainfall and eventually produces runoff after no more water can infiltrate. It does therewith have different hydrological properties than the built-up environment in a city that cause less infiltration and higher runoff. With remote sensing methods and data the nature space potential of the urban agglomeration will be investigated. So the quantity of urban green, its spatial distribution, networking and changes in its configuration will be analysed and assessed with satellite imageries and GIS data sets. Indicators such as the above mentioned spatial distribution, networking and configuration, and beyond these, the green structure (its linear or spatial form, isolation or fragmentation), dynamics (monitoring of changing processes) and patterns (neighbourhood relationships to other land uses such as residential or commercial districts) help to develop scenarios that can be used to estimate the reaction of an urban environment to extreme rainfall and to suggest improved land use planning in order to mitigate the flood hazard. The study area for this approach is Santiago de Chile, a large city with an urban setting very representative for Latin America. The presented methodology is used to assess and monitor the characteristics of urban green spaces in an expanding urban environment. Embedded in the project ‘Risk Habitat Megacity’ the results of the study are analysed and interpreted in a technical as well as a socioscientific context and thus provide analytical starting points for various disciplines.

Since the midnineteenth century, green spaces have been part of urban planning. In the twentieth century, green areas and park structures have become an integral part of urban design. In many examples, we can see that the green areas are not only an important part of the urban pattern, but they also became a vital part of the identity of the new urban development. At the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research, we recently did two studies into the role of green spaces in the identity of urban areas. The first study focussed on inner-city neighbourhoods that are all part of a national programme to improve deprived urban areas in the Netherlands. The other study dealt with a totally different group of urban areas, being 13 recent Dutch suburbs built from 1995. Together, these two studies provided an overview of almost 150 years of urban planning and park design. As far as green spaces and their role in the urban pattern are concerned, the two studies wanted to find answers to the following research questions: · In which ways can parks and other green spaces contribute to the identity of urban patterns? · Which characteristics are typical for specific periods or styles in park design and urban planning? · Can we find a difference in focus regarding quantity (park surface area standards) and quality in different periods? · What is the role of historical landscape elements in newly developed urban areas? During the research, we found that green and other open spaces can be really important characteristics of these areas. In some cases, tiny little paved squares turned out to be vital for the identity of neighbourhoods. In others, generous park systems, often combined with a network of canals and lakes, were the backbone of a surprisingly strong urban design. The most intriguing finding is, that we can see a change in focus happening in the mid-twentieth century, in which the emphasize shifts from quantity to quality.

The beneficial effect of nature in humans has been studied and demonstrated in many environments; however, housing areas have been forgotten. From the point of view that the house is the more private physical environment where we can develop our own ways of relating to the environment, I examine one of the modes of the relationship, specifically, with the natural environment: the placement of vegetation in balconies or the window of the home social area. With observation of 3987 balconies, in the city of Caracas, I describe the inclusion, or not, of vegetation to the house through the use or adaptation of design elements in the balconies. Among the results that I am reviewing, first of all I analyzed how many people put plants on their balconies and how much. Additionally it I revised what kind of adjustments or rebuilding people made to put (or not) these plants and eventually we linked these use of vegetation with variables of apartment height and orientation. We highlight where special efforts to put plants in places not designed for that purpose were made.

This study investigates how exposure to different natural environments influences pro-environmental behaviour, but with a different theory and research design. This study is multi method and conducted in the field. Two samples are compared: one exposed to unspectacular nature and the other to spectacular nature. Their pro-environmental behaviour are measured quantitatively as well as a qualitative analysis exploring the theoretical backdrops of self-transcendence and self-actualization.

Pharmaceuticals are increasingly detected in the aquatic environment. They can be removed by source control or technical measures at wastewater treatment plants. However, both are costly and it is still uncertain, whether medicals pose a real risk to aquatic organisms. Exceptions are e.g. hormones, which are known to negatively affect fish reproduction. Given such uncertainty, decisions cannot be made by scientists and engineers alone, but participatory and multidisciplinary approaches are needed. Experts are currently discussing, whether hospitals as important point sources might be target of first actions. Here, we propose a stakeholder analysis in the real case of a Swiss hospital to exemplify the many stakeholders involved in a complex decision: how to treat hospital wastewater to reduce the medical load to sewers. Stakeholder analysis was developed as response to many past failures of projects due to resistance by those involved. Here, we identify key stakeholders with a set of expert interviews. We follow a conceptual framework to characterize the stance and attitude of stakeholders to the issue, and to identify their relationships. This will help to then sort out the primary stakeholders. This analysis serves as basis for future stakeholder participation concerning reduced release of pharmaceuticals to wastewater. We envisage carrying out a multicriteria decision process to integrate natural science and engineering data with the preferences and values of the directly involved people. The results of this case study will broaden the empirical data base concerning improved decision making in complex settings that are a typical characteristic of environmental problems.

Solar water disinfection (SODIS), like other sustainable innovations to be introduced in developing countries, encounters problems in the uptake and usage process, although it is a low-cost water treatment to benefit health. For SODIS, untreated water in transparent PET-bottles is exposed to the sun for 6 hours. UVradiation and heat cause microbiological disinfection of the water. Interviews in the course of a field study were conducted. To address slow uptake as experienced in past projects, social network and communication attributes have been analyzed and used to shape dissemination strategies. Persuasion is used as psychological frame for the strategies involving Persuasion to do and to talk about SODIS, and a pass-on-task. Their different effects on the uptake of SODIS and the diffusion process will be discussed, and the impact of bottle centers to overcome bottle inavailability. These results shall be used to benefit future projects which aim to disseminate sustainable methods.

The word landscape has complex and multiple meanings which alter depending on the context it is used in and the background of the users. The European Landscape Convention very explicitly puts the perception in the definition of landscape. This involves a structural and a scenic approach to the landscape as well as the study of the landscape as a mental construct. Originally, most landscape preference research has focused on finding an empirical basis for public consensus. Less attention has been given to the effect of different landscape types and to the social and cultural profile of the respondents. In more recent literature, evidence is found for differences in preference instead of a unitary measure of environmental preference. Preference differences arise from people cognitively coding the scenes differently, according to their expectations for what the place could offer. The present paper reports on a study that investigates how social groups with different backgrounds (studies, culture/ethnicity, gender, age, urban/rural background, etc.) experience and behave in different landscapes. The study area is the city of Ghent (Flanders Region, Belgium) and its surroundings. The city counts over 233.000 inhabitants, with more than 12% of the people officially belonging to ethnic-cultural minorities. Most of them come from Turkey (45%) and Morocco (9%); smaller groups come from Eastern European countries, African countries, China, India and Pakistan. A postal questionnaire is distributed in selected statistical sectors in the city, representing a stratified sample. The questionnaire items deal with environmental attitude and behaviour, socio-cultural background and acculturation, key concepts of visual landscape preference, and personal characteristics. The expected results pertain both to underlying dimensions of landscape preference that are common to all respondents and landscape characteristics that are related to more personal observer’s characteristics. The influence of factors, such as environmental beliefs, childhood experiences, acculturation level, and other more personal characteristics, will be presented.

The aim of this work is to elicit information strategies derived from the action generating process for environmentally sound behavior. First, brief results from an empirical study were reported identifying typical motivational, intentional and volitional patterns. Second, principles of a tailored information system for high water will be presented that is based on these empirical results. Third, it will be discussed if the applied procedures can be generalized to generate information in other environmental domains. The 'Motivation- Intention-Volition-Model (MIV)' serves as theoretical background. It defines the action generating process in three phases: the ‘motivation phase’, the ‘action choice phase’ and the ‘volition phase’. On the basis of the MIV-Model distinct scales were developed and surveyed with a telephone interview (n=589) and an online questionnaire (n=242). In a 2-step analysis with the help of mixture distribution models 4 Action Types were identified. In the next step tailored information for these 4 types was identified. The idea behind this rationale was to provide compensatory information regarding the three phases of the MIV-model. Information units were fed accordingly into a tailored information system for high water that is accessible via WWW. With a screening questionnaire consisting on 10 questions the most probable action type can be computed automatically and furthermore the information will be adjusted to the living conditions – for example: no high water protection is needed if the user’s living ground is more than 5 meters over sea level. The described way of identifying action types can be used for all environmental domains in which individual actions are crucial. The tailoring mechanisms built on action theories seem to be a very promising way to help potential users with special information to realize their desired actions. Furthermore to use an automatic system for these tailoring mechanisms seems to be feasible for reaching a great number of people. In fact the scalability of the existing information system is only limited by the power of the underlying web services. A possible extension of the existing system would be the direct linkage to environmental offers or services. So that the potential user can be seamless realize the desired action without changing the WWW service. This would foster the quota of realized actions and therefore strengthens the overall effectiveness of an information strategy.

This project identifies, describes and visualizes, and finally evaluates possible options for landscape development in Switzerland within the next 25 years, based on expert surveys. The project’s basic purpose is to create a basis for discussion and deliberation among stakeholders and administration representatives in the course of the elaboration of the new Swiss Spatial Concept, which is currently being outlined, and which will provide strategic guidelines and objectives for the future spatial development of the country. In this sense, the project will integrate the aspect of landscape development into the Spatial Concept. Based on a survey (n = 21) and small group discussions among scientists from the field of landscape research, possible options for the development of six types of landscapes in Switzerland were collected. The options were subsequently discussed in a workshop with administrative experts (n = 20), supported by visualisations of the landscape types and of possible development options conducted by students from the College of Art. The resulting final selection of 36 landscape development options for the six landscape types were completed, described and put into context of their drivers, consequences and possible steering mechanisms by the landscape scientists in a second survey and individual interviews. Finally the development options were evaluated in a web-based survey among all the stakeholders involved in the participatory process conducted for outlining the Spatial Concept, n = 343). The stakeholders were asked to rate the options with regard to desirability and perceived need for action (i.e., formulating new strategic guidelines). The results indicate a clear demand for near-natural and ecologically enhanced landscapes in all landscape types. In mountainous regions, regional nature parks with a correspondingly extensive agriculture were by far the most favourite kind of development. The poster will also report experiences from the whole process of integrating knowledge of scientists, administrative experts as well as stakeholders, and discuss the visualization procedures.

The Department of Technologies of Architecture and Design “P. Spadolini” of the University of Florence cooperates with Universidade Federal do Parà of Belèm (Brazil), and with the Tongji University of Shanghai (China), on the themes of sustainable conservation and valorisation of housing in historical city centres. Spatial and cultural continuity of architecture and urban fabric is a collective memory and the identity of many cities, in the present world. The aim is to highlight local identities, based on the historical heritage, and global connections and multicultural approach as a resource of the urban life. Shanghai history shows the cultural, social and economical interaction between the East and the West., in particular the Lilong district reveals the evolution of lifestyle, urban form, architectural design and technological development, playing an important role to understand the Chinese urban history in the dynamics of local/foreign interactions within the market. Belém, a colonial Portuguese city of the 17th Century located at the estuary of the Amazon River, was a strategic area for the trade of Amazonian products. Many Europeans visited and lived in here. The Cidade Velha district plays an important role in order to understand the Brazilian urban history made of interactions between the local society of Indios and European colonizers. Nowadays, the conditions of the Lilong and Cidade Velha districts are critical. The research programme objectives are: - to share the urban, architectural and cultural heritage scientific methodologies and best practices; - to study, analyse and compare different urban fabric, architecture types and building techniques; - to develop the training and the information activities addressed to both individuals and organisations; - to develop guidelines for sustainable preservation and renewal action. A multicultural and multidisciplinary approach is used in the project: a large group composed by four European Universities besides the University of Florence started to work together in collaboration with the Tongji University; in the Belém project a group composed by city planner, architects, surveyors, historians of architecture. We propose the use of different scientific approach and tools from different areas. In this experience some strategic suggestions and projects are worked out to preserve and renew the historical housing and the urban environment improving cities cultural and natural resources.

Using a transactional framework, we examined expectations, attitudes, and behaviors of residents before and after a new light rail stop was built in their neighborhood. Residents anticipated and then reported significant increases in neighborhood housing costs, improvements, taxes, economic opportunities, reputations, and sense of community. In a multivariate analysis, controlling income and employment, those who never rode the rail were more likely to be obese, got less exercise (fewer accelerometer measured moderate activity bouts), had more car trips, lower satisfaction and attachment levels, and lower attitudes towards transit oriented development (TOD). Conversely, residents who were rail riders at both times were least likely to be obese, most active, had fewest car trips, and had high levels of attachment, satisfaction, and pro-TOD attitudes. The study supports the idea that people gain individual benefits from TODs and there may exist a strong market for such developments.

Urban greenery might figure in residential design as an option to promote a less stressful everyday environments for urban inhabitants (Grahn & Stigsdotter, 2003). The aim of research is to identify and quantify restorative qualities of the immediate green environments in high-rise housing in order to develop restorative supportive design Research questions: 1.What are the components of the immediate green environments that are of special importance for the psychological restoration in high-rise housing? 2.How do these components relate to the key features of the restoration process? 3.Do the proposed design characteristics of the immediate green environments promote restoration and can they be translated into the restorative supportive design?

The importance of ‘place’ concept and different urban identities in architectural design is indisputable. As a subject of design, research and education; historical and traditional environments in different scales are also researchable and teachable subjects in architectural education. On this basis, tutors from two universities organized design workshops which were concerned with understanding the relationship between environment in different scales and the socio cultural factors of the settings. “Continuity, Change and Transformation” was the theme of the workshops and aims were to examine architectural form/space/culture and to debate spatial transformation of a historical and traditional environment in a design process. At this point, the study area of the workshop was chosen as the city of Edirne and Trilye Edirne is characteristic Ottoman cities which are the best instances of Ottoman architecture. Trilye is a traditional town that is living from the Ancient Greek era. Results of the workshops convey the value of understanding the concept place and reflecting such an understanding in architectural design education.

Purpose: The focus of this study is the dining hall and a detailed analysis of individual activity there. This analysis provides basic knowledge for improving the QOL of elderly residents. The reason for focusing on “dining” is because this is a basic daily event directly related to quality of life. Video footage of dining scenes at elderly facilities is used as material for an impression evaluation by third party viewers. These impressions are then used to consider what it takes to have a vibrant dining—living—environment. Methods: Using footage of three residential facilities, this study examines “location impressions” of dining scenes. The first step is to record the activity of elderly residents. In the second stage, we edit the footage into three time periods (before, during, and after dining), show the clips to third party viewers (in this case, 50 university students), and analyze their “location impressions.” The three elderly residential facilities in this study are in Korea (A and P) and in Japan (O). Thirty to 50 residents meet at a specified time in the dining hall to eat together. Results: (1) The dining scene at facility P receives the most favorable impression and obtains the highest score in “Looks traditional.” Though further research is required, this suggests that factors such as “Looks traditional” and “Looks intimate” contribute to a favorable impression. (2) The physical capacity of a facility does is not necessarily consistent with the environmental evaluation it receives. (3) Facility A probably receives an unfavorable impression for the after-dinner period because of a strong tendency for residents to leave their seats as soon as they are finished eating. This conspicuous after-dinner activity may influence the impression. Implications: In this study we ask Japanese university students to give their impressions of activity at three elderly facilities, two in Korea and one in Japan. The results show definite differences in evaluation, even when viewing an overseas facility. This clearly suggests that for an impression evaluation, the difference between facilities is more important than the difference between countries. The analysis results also lead us to conclude that the scale of a facility and whether the style is traditional strongly influence the impression produced.

This paper is a part of the research on “Innovative interventions on social housing” that has been developed at Department of design and Study of Architecture (DI.P.S.A) of Università degli Studi Roma Tre. The general ojective is to reveal the hidden potential offered by empty spaces of ground floors of social housing stock realized under two national programmes of 1967 and 1985 named P.E.E.P (Piani per l’Edilizia Economica e Popolare), in order to increase regeneration processes. These “kind of spaces”, without a specific destination of use and without specific quality, appear at least as shapeless places, in other cases as residual spaces avoided by inhabitants and perceived as dangerous. The research investigates possible transformations of these spaces in relationship to the environmental and social context, particularly by infill development with selected functions. This sort of interventions, with its point and one-off approach, could constitute a “micro-network” spread in the urban fabric in order to start a bigger process of urban regeneration. The objective of this investigation is to stimulate local Administations, Housing Associations, inhabitants and media to consider ground floor on “ pilotis” an important resource for renovation of housing stock, and, if it will be conveniently filled, it could become the flywheel of outskirts rehabilitation.

This study aims at examining relations between perceived safety, preoccupation with theft, perceptions of social control and security behaviours. In eight public spaces of university, student participants were chosen upon type of security behaviour regarding their belongings: careless (leave valuables unattended to reserve a place) versus careful (leave valueless objects to reserve a place). Each sample included 200 subjects and was balanced in sex. Subjects were asked to evaluate by means of 5-point scales: their perceptions of safety, degree of preoccupation with theft and perceived efficiency of social control. Results show that subjects who perceive an efficient social control declare to feel safer and are less preoccupied with theft than do those who perceive social control as weak. Subjects with careless behaviour perceive social control as more efficient than do subjects with careful behaviour. Although no effect of the type of behaviour on the degree of preoccupation with theft was found, results show that the type of behaviour accounts for perceived safety. Results are discussed from theoretical and practical points of view.

The urban landscape of the Indian capital, New Delhi, is fast changing in the neo-liberal Indian economy that boasts more than 8% growth rates in the last three years. The city, especially in the run up to the Commonwealth Games in 2010, looks like a giant construction site. Airports, flyovers, tunnel roads, integrated townships, Special Economic Zones, are together spending billions of dollars in upgrading the city’s infrastructure and in turn the city’s image to capture the global imagination to label Delhi a world class city. In all this construction frenzy, in which urban designers from across the globe play an important role, there seems to be a paucity of imagination when it comes to promoting new “public places” in Delhi, the traditional preoccupation of urban design. The only public place type that has proliferated is the centrally airconditioned shopping mall, which is a privatized space type accessible only to a few. Is there no other public place type worth promoting as part of the “global” city initiative? If we have to ask citizens themselves and realign our development paradigm to promote a “human global” and more sustainable city, what kind of public places are needed for Delhi? This is the context of the larger research in which the proposed paper is embedded. This paper investigates the choice of public places by citizens of Delhi through an exploratory study that included opinions of a large cross-section of people (n=100) across a large age-span (5-60) and with equal gender representation. The respondents were accessed in public places across the city with equal numbers (n=20) in five age groups children (5-16 years), youth (17-25 years), young adults (25-35 years), adults (35-50 years), older adults (50 years and above). The top place, according to citizens, is a freely accessible vast monumental landscape in the heart of central Delhi fondly referred to as India Gate. The second best place is the historic market district of Connaught Place, which was developed as part of Imperial Delhi along with the India Gate precinct. The third top place is a place type—the neighborhood park.The top three public places, according to this study, across all citizens, will be discussed in detail in terms of their physical attributes, environmental quality, observed behavior, meanings attached by respondents, the dominant and subordinate groups and their territorial claiming of space, and the process of production of these three places.

Incorporation of semi-natural habitats on arable land and adoption of agri-environmental management in daily agricultural practice are seen as key elements in the protection of rural biodiversity and conversion to sustainable agriculture. These measures are stimulated by systems of subsidies by national and regional governments throughout Western Europe. A major disadvantage of monetary incentives to stimulate nature conservation on farmlands is that financial resources are often limited and therefore the effects of the instrument are only temporary. Furthermore, strict regulation and monetary incentives leave little room for individual initiatives and often lead to reduction of efforts that reach beyond stated requirements. Subsidized agri-environmental management may therefore lead to suboptimal results in terms of arable biodiversity and may not provide a sound basis for protection of arable biodiversity and a durable transition towards sustainable agriculture, which is supported by results of recent ecological studies. Therefore, finding alternative ways of motivating farmers to participate in nature conservation schemes and enlarging farmer’s commitment is crucial to the success of conserving agricultural biodiversity and wildlife. Combining socialpsychological and ecological research we aimed to identify relevant aspects of the motivation of farmers to incorporate biodiversity measures into their agricultural practice under both subsidized and unsubsidized conditions. We aimed to relate these aspects to actual on-farm nature and conditions for biodiversity. Questionnaires containing questions about social-psychological backgrounds for participation in agrienvironmental management and the area and management of different semi-natural habitats on the farm were sent to 108 arable farms in the Netherlands, resulting in 85 responses. The results of our study made it possible to test some of the ruling paradigms in conservation behaviour theory in actual conservation practice and identify important guidelines for the design of interventions aimed at increasing farmers’ motivation for and commitment to agri-environmental management.

The World Health Organization (WHO), with the publication of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health: ICF, proposed a new model of disability conceived as the result of the relationship between the condition of health of an individual and the contextual factors. Fougeyrollas et al. (1998) developed a scale, the Life Habits (Life-H), in order to measure the role of environmental determinants in the performance of daily activities by persons with disabilities. However the Life-H is most focused on the measure of the level of the accomplishments of daily activities and the resulting satisfaction achieved, but it is less oriented to stress the role of the perceived quality of the environment experienced. Referring to the psychological environmental domain, therefore, the residential satisfaction is conceived as a multidimensional construct including spatial, social-relational, functional, and contextual aspects. In particular, a specific tool was developed to assess perceived residential environment quality (PREQ) (Bonaiuto, Fornara, Bonnes, 2003; 2006). A pilot study, aiming to investigate the relationship between satisfaction about the level of accomplishment of life habits and the perception of residential environmental quality in Italian disabled resident in the city of Rome, is carried out. In the pre-experimental phase we proceeded with the Life-H 3.0 Italian adaptation; afterwards we investigated the satisfaction in accomplishment of life habits related to the perceived quality of environmental features of 40 participants. administering the Life-H Italian version and the short form of the PREQ. We expect that the Italian version of the Life-H confirms validity and reliability. In particular, we expect a positive correlation between selfperceived accomplishment of life habits and residential environment quality specifically related to the functional aspects and to the socio-relational features of the neighbourhood.

The purpose of this paper is to present students’ different cognitive performances that are embedded within their socio-cultural context, as manifested in their project’s outcomes. A new teaching experiment was given to graduation students at the beginning of the academic year, which addressed the cognitive operation of the mental process. The aims were to increase students’ perception of the built environment and to train them to use sources of inspiration unrelated to the problem they are required to solve. The methodology used to obtain the result of this hypothesis relied on classification of the outcomes according to similarity, relating them to results obtained from in-depth structured interviews with some open ended questions with the students (80) that dealt with their socio-cultural background, their areas of interest and the extent of their exposure. Data analysis revealed an influence of the cultural-environment context on the perceptioninterpretation processes.

The research empirically addresses the effects of spatial attributes on social interaction of different socioeconomic groups in local neighborhoods, in a comparative study of three central urban areas in the city of Porto Alegre, South of Brazil. In these areas, characterized by high and medium income population, lowincome groups were introduced through social housing regularization projects. In order to investigate the physical and composicional attributes related to the interactional process, the different levels of social interaction were evaluated by residents’ attitudes and spatial behavior in the local environment, regarding the simultaneous activities or the desire of separation between groups. Data collection consisted of physical description of the selected areas, interviews, questionnaires, mental maps and behavioral maps. The analyses of the data were based on non-parametric statistic and GIS resources. The multiple techniques enhanced the comprehension and the validity of the investigation. Results show that social interaction between different socioeconomic populations are affected by similarities of building appearance between social housing and the neighborhood context, allowing better use of local streets and the identification of group collective image. Results indicate that physical attributes are relevant in order to understand the behavior of different populations living in the urban areas. Moreover, it shows that project decisions related to regularization of social housing can be improved when concerned with certain physical aspects that help to reduce the effects of heterogeneity for social interaction. The study allows better understanding about the process of social interaction between different socioeconomic groups living in the same neighborhood. It is expected that it will stimulate interest to develop further studies on the subject, as well as promote urban policies congruent with cultural diversity.

"The purpose of our research was to highlight the problems of the practice of carpooling. Indeed, we are concerned to highlight the different brakes, which could slow the practice of carpooling. To carry out this project, we developed a questionnaire listing the top ten ecological gestures, carpooling included. The primary purpose of our investigation was to compare the ecological gestures between them and to highlight the fact that carpooling was a practice used by very few individuals and deemed as not feasible. Based on this observation, our second objective was to analyze the nature of resistance to the practice of carpooling with the later referred to ""defuse"" the brakes with the theory of commitment, and consequently induce individuals to use the carpool as a means of locomotion. The questionnaire was suggested to students from two different universities."

East-Central European (ECE) inner cities – widely known as urban “zones of transition” – have been facing profound demographic changes since the 1990s. Declining birth rates, ageing, changing household compositions and consequences of inter- and intraregional mobility increasingly impact on their development. Simultaneously, they have been undergoing processes of socio-spatial diversification, i. e. processes of segregation, gentrification, reurbanization, decline as well as ethnic concentration that has led to different “neighbourhood trajectories” and a more and more fragmenting inner-city space. Set against this background, the paper aims to analyse the demographic dimension of ECE inner-city change and to identify its interplay with social change. Using the example of Polish and Czech cities, it discusses to what extent processes of socio-demographic diversification and/or polarisation are already detectable in the residential composition of these areas and if they are likely to do so in the near future. Furthermore, the paper reflects the impact that these changes may bring about for the future development of the areas in terms of residential structure, social composition and tenure. The paper provides evidence for the fact that demographic change represents one of the most powerful drivers of inner urban change in Poland and the Czech Republic. It is closely intertwined with social shifts. Approaching these overlaps via the household dimension promises to gain additional insights into directions and dimensions of demographic and social diversification and/or polarisation.

Gated communities have become popular at the end of twentieth century in Western countries. These residential areas have an explicit boundary where the access of non-residents is clearly restricted with the walls, fences and security guards. There are legal agreements which tie the residents to a common code of conduct and collective responsibility for management. The desire for belonging to a status group, privacy, the lack of unexpectedness, self-sufficiency all form important aspects of the motivation to live behind the walls and gates. However, the relations with the wider neighborhood behind the walls are generally neglected. The existence of inner commercial and leisure facilities and even health facilities have caused to create privatized public spaces where the coincidental encounters with the others living behind the walls are being precluded. The privatization of public spaces, fortification of urban and residential space and the embodiment of public fears about private crimes (both property and personal) that gated communities invoke caused social exclusion and alienation. Gated communities are increasingly common across Turkey in the last ten years, yet very little is known about the explicit and implicit reasons behind why people choose those kinds of residential areas. Some cultural characteristics of Turkish society, like strong neighbourhood relations and family ties, less fear of the “others” are taken as the differences from the developed Western countries. This paper aims to investigate the reasons behind the socio-cultural and economical factors behind the increasing popularity of gated communities in developed Western countries and in Turkey. In the study, author claims that changing understanding about daily life under the influence of capitalist relations caused to new understanding about both meaning and usage of residential areas.

The interdisciplinary research project presented in this paper deals with the need for interdisciplinary approaches in diagnosis and planning to achieve sustainable urban development. The planned research project is mainly based on the experiences gained during a two years pilot phase, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research. Climate change impacts will change the vulnerability of urban systems as well as the related risk and resilience potentials, thus the evaluation of these aspects considering climate change scenarios is indispensable for planning sustainable strategies of urban development and integrated solutions for the climate problem. It is essential to consider that urban structure, morphology and dynamics cause or increase vulnerabilities and risks which will be strengthened by climate change effects in the future. Potentials for efficient adaptation and mitigation strategies for sustainable urban development offered by land use planning are not sufficiently used or even known. Open spaces and conversion sites play an important role as they imply high potentials and risks of suffering a change of occupation. They have a potential to avoid future hazards and risks, to reduce respectively mitigation of current risks and hazards, to meliorate the actual and future quality of life as well as to set up climate- and energy efficient structures. The steering of land use and its changes (especially of open spaces as well as unused and inefficiently used land) within the context of the urban matrix thus provides essential potential for a sustainable, climate- and energy efficient urban development. The overall project goal is the development of flexible, integrated and intersectoral strategies and instruments for a better controlled/managed use and change of open spaces and conversion sites functions in Recife, based on a sound analysis, evaluation and valorisation of spatial and temporal functions and dynamics, considering socio-cultural, economical, ecological and especially climate relevant vulnerabilities, risks and potentials as well as their interrelationships. Based on the application of these strategies and instruments it is expected to reduce the vulnerability of the urban system on spatial and temporal scales.

Suburban areas, or middle landscapes, can serve as ideal human habitat and demonstrate how humanenvironmental synergy can be sustained. However, without extensive evaluation and management, development of the middle landscape may be haphazard and can lead to awkward assimilation into the city. This study assessed the physical and aesthetic attributes of the catchment basin of a Japanese river and the value of the middle landscape within it. A digital surface model of the catchment area was created using aerial photographs which were classified according to land use. Panoramic video images were taken both upstream and downstream from all the bridges along the mainstream of the river. View-shed areas within the frame of each of the panorama images were generated for the 3-D individual land use areas. Forty-one college students evaluated and rated the images using the Scenic Beauty Estimation procedure to standardize the perceptual assessment data thus obtained. Three types of middle landscape were identified by factor analysis and cluster analysis: 1) a perspective of distant mountains and forests with anthropogenic structures in the foreground (mountain-forest type); 2) view consisting of rice paddy fields, farmlands, natural areas and/or vacant land (country-nature type); and 3) view of water surface with commercial facilities (developed waterfront type). The findings indicated that the visibility of middle landscapes, particularly the perspective of distant mountains and forests, has a positive impact on the view from the river, even if they have conspicuous anthropogenic structures in the foreground. Conversely, the combination of commercial facilities with water tends to be rated relatively low. The study also examined how evaluations of middle landscapes can contribute to the planning and management of environments within watersheds.

This workshop will present and discuss mixed qualitative and quantitative methodologies that capture the complex interactions of people with place with a special focus on diverse communities. A range of multidisciplinary techniques will be presented to include: place ethnography, new technologies, experiential mapping and audio walks, use of GIS, and a method to explore personal projects. The workshop proposal is directed to researchers wishing to develop integrative research methodologies and will focus on integrating diverse communities into the research process (i.e., immigrant populations, older people and young people at risk) who find it difficult to engage in traditional quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies.

"Executive Summary Quantum E3 Corporation was formed originally as an information service. Recently, due to global disasters we have created the High Desert Chapter of the ISGBTT (Intelligent Subterranean Green Building Technology Transfer start-up to facilitate answers to the ongoing problem of poorly designed single family homes. Quantum E3 Corporation is in position to bring about intense change in the global energy sector. Eighty percent of the world's energy is reliant upon fossil fuels which are finite, and produce hannful tox-ins. This configuration was brought about in the last two centuries. However, the next 50 years need to be dedicated to fast moving but well planned change. Currently, only 11% of the current ""carbon based economy"" is renewable. Governments, companies, and scientists from all walks of life have committed R&D funds to try to find answers to the current situation. The problem: find huge amounts of renewable ""clean"" energy to suit modem lifestyle, and facilitate safety at the same time. Here at Quantum E3, one obvious answer is built on the ""hydrogen factor"" an emerging sustainable energy supply system to support America's growing need for electricity .This milestone will not only create more high-end careers, but a smaller ""carbon footprint"" in the single family housing sector. Supply of this new energy source is potentially limitless and clean!"

This symposium reflects intentional processes for sustainable behavior from different viewpoints. The first work in the domain of high water protection demonstrates the interplay of motivational and intentional process and tries to derive systematic information strategies from these patterns. The second work in the domain of mobility behavior tries to understand the stability of intentions from a qualitative perspective: residents were interviewed after relocation. The third work in the domain of innovative water usage tries to identify dynamic antecedents of intention formation: the interpersonal communication behavior. The results of the three studies are compensating each other and may lead to a more complex and holistic understanding of intention formation process. The important motivational processes as identified in study 1 that are influencing the intention formation can be seen as relatively stable, so it is very difficult to influence them directly. Intentions and corresponding habits can be very stable as well (study 2), but results hint on habit weakening around changing circumstances (relocation process). Combining results of study 1 and 2 means that the proposed information strategies should be most effectively applied to changing circumstances. An alternative way of sharing and distributing information strategies is discussed in study 3: what are the antecedents of communication intensity? Whereas the proposed information system in study 1 might be applied in big communities, the interpersonal communication proposed by study 3 might be more affective to change intentions in small communities. Moreover influences that might stem from an online information system will be embedded in dynamic interpersonal communication, especially in a household with more than one person. So the proposed information system (study 1) should be investigated within different communication situations.

Having been involved in a range of interdisciplinary projects since 2003 I have worked alongside colleagues from a broad range of academic disciplines. In this presentation I attempt to draw out some of the key challenges of working in this way through discussing, for example, how interactions between researchers can influence the project both positively and negatively, how methodologies can be developed either in isolation or in collaboration, and how integration can be a fore-thought or an after-thought. Drawing on six interdisciplinary projects, some involving a number of institutions as well as disciplines, and also on two conference sessions organised in the UK on interdisciplinarity I discuss some of the key considerations (including philosophical perspectives, methodological compatibility and integration) that must be taken at the beginning of a project to ensure understanding and cooperation between colleagues. I will address some of the pitfalls that can occur within an interdisciplinary project, such as misunderstandings and assumptions about other disciplines’ epistemological positions or identifying terminological mismatches and attempting to develop a shared language. Furthermore I discuss how interdisciplinary research is valued within a discipline-structured academic context, the impact this can have on academic careers and the differences between research funded by a research council, for example, and a research-commissioning body where one acts as a consultant. Finally I discuss some personal insights into what makes an effective interdisciplinary project and the obstacles to look out for from the initial stages of collaboration.

This symposium presents studies which have applied psychological models and theories to develop interventions which aim to promote sustainability. The papers explore different information based interventions and their impact on different types of attitudes and behaviours. The papers will discuss the successful and less successful elements of the intervention and explore possibilities for future research and practice. The aim of the symposium is to explore what kinds of information-based interventions can be useful in promoting sustainability.

This article contains the results of my dissertation “Interventions in the Hills of Recife Metropolitan Region (RMR, Norteasth, Brazil): between necessity and quality”. The purpose of the article is to assess the quality of interventions in hill-side slums in the RMR and the extent to which the beneficiary population is satisfied with this work. The relevance of the paper lies in its contribution to our understanding of the problems arising from the settlement of hillsides and in stimulating reflection on the part of technicians and government decision-makers involved in implementing public works. The article also proposes alternatives to the current pattern of intervention relating to qualitative and aesthetic aspects that are of interest to the beneficiary population. A survey was carried out involving 62 public works in 13 localities and 91 local inhabitants were interviewed. In addition, the results of questionnaires and interviews collected as part of FIDEM’s “Long Live the Hillside!” programme were analysed. The public works studied address the needs of the local inhabitants according to a technical logic which pays little regard either to their immediate environmental conditions or their socio-cultural traditions. Such works concentrate on topological factors and are limited to high-risk areas, thereby tending to disregard qualitative and aesthetic aspects and failing to take into consideration the general satisfaction of the local people. In many cases, serious functional problems arise, resulting in various kinds of accident. Poor maintenance, often carried out by the residents themselves, provides further evidence of weaknesses in terms of conservation and sustainability. The participation of local residents is normally restricted to identifying and reporting dangerous conditions, or working as labourers to reduce the cost of the project. Their opinions and prior experience tend not to be incorporated in the technical solution that is eventually implemented. The results show that the level of dissatisfaction with the end-product varies from 40 to 47%, but, at the same time, indicates that there are some positive popular and governmental initiatives that are worth replicating. Two articles of this dissertation were accepted by ANPUR- National Association for Postgraduate Research in Urban and Regional Planning, in Belém, Brazil, May 2007 and in the V International Seminar of Social Housing, in Chile, October 2007.

Carl F. Graumann (31.3.1923-8. 8.2008) was one of the founders of environmental Psychology in Germany in the early 1970ies. Under the term “Ökologische Psychologie” (Ecological Psychology) it was not meant as a new subdiscipline of psychology but rather a “perspective” that should pervade all fields of psychology (ecologization) and help to overcome the total neglect of the spatial and material environment in the social and behavioral sciences until the sixties. The name “ecological Psychology” had been chosen to emphasize – as a complement to biological ecology – people-environment-relationships that are central in a human and/or socio-cultural ecology. Very early in his life C. F. Graumann became interested in the phenomenological approach to psychology that made him aware of - the basic intentionality of all human experience and behavior, i.e. an indissoluble meaningful personenvironment relationship and transaction / - and a traditional “neglect of things” in studies of experience and behavior in psychology and sociology, that were strictly person- or group-centered, but largely neglected the physical environment and its objects. // To study people in their intentional environments means to conceive of subjects as “situated individuals”, i.e., focusing on bodily and gendered subjects with their biographical background and embedded in a sociocultural and spatial/material context, located in a place and viewing objects and events from a standpoint. The combination of phenomenological and ecological thinking is shown in his conception of “appropriation” of space, in his studies on the perspectival nature of human cognition (stressing viewpoints, aspects, and horizon as its constituent features) and the analysis of developing subjects in changing intentional environments. One of the most comprehensive studies that he had planned and carried out with a number of co-workers, stimulated by the close contact with Proshansky, Ittelson, Rivlin & Winkel at CUNY (when Carl was Theodor Heuss Professor at the New School for Social Research) on place identity as conceived of as ‘identity of’ and ‘identification with’ cities. The empirical focus was an investigation in several German and three French cities or neighborhoods, applying a mix of quantitative and qualitative (e.g. linguistic) methods. In a similar vein a study of the city of Rome was conceived (together with M. Bonnes and colleagues) to assess perception and evaluation of Rome from various viewpoints by residents and tourists.

Nature can help to restore depleted attention resources or reduce stress. In a recently finished study, it was examined whether different presentation modes of urban nature are equally restorative and explore the role of artificiality in that context. We conducted a combined field/laboratory experiment, using a betweensubject design to manipulate presentation modes of a walking-track through an urban baroque styled park. After performing a stress-inducing task, participants (N=118) were randomly assigned to three presentation modes: in situ, video recording and a computer simulation of the same walking track. Additionally, a control group (walking + no presentation) was established. We measured salivary alpha-amylase, self-reported affect and attention restoration, as well as perception and attitude towards artificiality. First analyses show differences in the in situ and laboratory conditions, which indicate methodological and practical implications for further studies in that field.

Participation is seen by international organizations like UN-Habitat and others as the only means to solve problems especially in developing countries. Funding agencies encouraged the creation of civic society organizations like NGOs and CBOs since the 1980s. The trend of participation became an indispensable ingredient in almost all development projects, becoming almost the “catch” word to get funding and support from any international organization. How has participation been implemented in the Egyptian context? Where has it lead? These are questions I intend to address through a review of different types and scales of expert-initiated participation in planning, housing and urban development in general Egypt. Through examples I discuss the following: - Institutionalizing participation at different levels; national, municipal and community levels. Lessons learnt; what works what doesn’t and why? - Cultural challenges of community participation; explaining the initial reluctance to participate, the thirst for power, the celebration of participation and the desire to be associated with the change, the relapse in passiveness and discontinuity. - Gradual empowerment, dialogue and co-decision: 2 cases of participation in design; one in housing rehabilitation and the other in a public service building. Focusing on the balance between what people want and expert knowledge. Within those I address some critical questions that revolve around the issue of participation such as: Could participation possibly increase inequalities? Are we willing to accept the judgments of the people who participate? Should we try to institutionalize participation? In conclusion I share some reflective thoughts questioning the very purpose of participation and the motives of different stakeholders?

The English planning system has recently been subject to major reforms, partly to enhance participation. The roots of this lay in established concerns about participation – eg. representation and equity – and the new system attempted to address these with challenging new requirements and national guidance. This paper will argue that general planning practice has yet to cope successfully with the challenges, but it will also elaborate how and why that is now changing. It will show how recent practice is beginning to create a context in which participation practice is addressing many (but by no means all) of the traditional concerns. The paper will also show how the wide-ranging work of some practitioners is beginning to create a robust context and infrastructure which is moving participation in planning and development from being an exception to a situation in which it the norm and mainstream.

This paper identifies the landmarks in downtown Porto Alegre, Brazil, and their main spatial attributes for downtown users. It further explores landmarks aesthetic values, including their relationship with the surroundings formal attributes, and landmarks relation with urban visual fields and pedestrian movement. Urban landmarks are one of the key elements on the structure of any legible environment and therefore, of a sustainable urban environment. They are characterized by their own memorable and salient attributes in relation to the context, allowing the understanding and use of urban spaces. According to many studies, the identification of a landmark is affected by its formal and locational attributes that contribute to its distinctiveness. Nonetheless, there is the need to increase the knowledge about specific aspects related to these attributes, including their impact on landmarks perception by users of distinct socio-cultural urban contexts. The methodological procedures included three stages. Firstly, cognitive maps and interviews were applied to downtown users' in order to identify the landmarks. Secondly, through the use of the Depthmap software, landmarks were analyzed regarding visual fields and pedestrian movement. In the third stage, questionnaires were applied to downtown users simultaneously to video recorded images of downtown Porto Alegre presented to them, in order to evaluate the landmarks, their aesthetic attributes and their surroundings. Results show that the identified landmarks are located in the most integrated lines, with greater potential of pedestrian movement, and close to the most integrated visual fields, which implies locations of greater visibility. The importance of locational aspects and buildings historical value for landmark definition is confirmed. Moreover, landmarks tended to be associated with aesthetic positive value. The analysis of urban landmarks allows a better understanding of landmark recognition in urban environments, with positive consequences for a sustainable urban development.

The availability of infrastructure services is critical to the functioning of the modern urban environment. The presence, the absence, the quality of infrastructure services affects the well-being of residents, determines the efficient operation of the urban economy and assists in the effective functioning of property markets. Searching for the liveable community in general is concerned with the quality of life of its members, and the trade-offs between people and their environments which they live, work and play within. A liveable community is an extremely complex concept which involves the physical environment providing opportunities for humans to meet their needs and desires. Researchers and designers must concern themselves with raising the standard of the designed environment from the present level, to one whish meets the complex levels of human needs. To reach this goal it is necessary to bridge the gap between research and design and to link the two into a comprehensive framework. This research project is investigating and proposing the landscape infrastructures as one of the urban infrastructures that contribute to a more liveable community with a special reference to new communities in the arid zones. A liveable community is the one which meets the needs and desires of its visitors and inhabitants. The methods involve descriptive research, matrix development and SWOT analysis for case study. Six categories of infrastructures and a number of sub-categories were identified. The six categories of infrastructures are conventional, built up, economic, social, environmental and landscape. A matrix relating infrastructures and liveability, illustrates how a liveable community can be reached by educate infrastructures planning. Case study of six communities in New-Cairo, covering the housing typologies in the Egyptian new communities has been reviewed. These communities ranged from public and public-private to private schemes, and from low-income, mid-income and high income groups. The result is a frame work for understanding the relationship between the urban infrastructures namely landscape infrastructures and more liveable new communities in arid zones within the context of the developing countries.

The aim of this research is to investigate the cognitive mapping process of a regional landscape (Sardinia - Italy). Cognitive mapping is a process “by which an individual acquires, stores, recall, and decodes information about the relative locations and attributes of the phenomena” (Downs and Stea, 1973:3) or people learn, remember, and process spatial information about an environment (Kitchin, Freundschuh, 2000). In this study landscape is a specific spatial phenomena with high social value: it represents ecosystem diversity (di Castri, Balaji, 2002) and a significant dimension of space personal experience (Ohta, 2001). We thought the landscape cognitive maps like the result of a series of psychological transformations in which memories, residents’ social and cultural background, impressions, associations, and so on (Ohta, 2001) prevail over spatial relations ad represents an important component of place identity. They have a practical application level like a tool of the social design (Canter, 1977; Gifford, 2002; Kitchin, 1994) because they allow us to understand the community awareness of own environment and “ mind interior landscape” (di Castri, Balaji, 2002). This approach is useful to think the landscape project like a ethic project that refers to and boosts social and place identity of people (ethical concerns). The wide investigation of cognitive maps by sketch maps, since the sixties, reveal that this technique shows some problems: motor skill, creation of symbolic representation of physical elements, familiarity with paper and pencil format, etc. are strongly dependent to the social group. Qualitative techniques are a answer (Kitchin, 2000; Tversksy, 2000). We required adults (n. 185) living in Sardinia (a island of Italy) for a sketch map of their region landscape, to attach a label to each drawn object and to explain their importance. Like expected data analysis shows the preponderance of isolate objects in a environment without contours and land end reveals a difficult to represent landscape like a shifting system. The sample of inhabitants’ landscape representations (sketch maps and labels) was essentially focused on greenery, vertical shapes, coastal and agricultural areas. On the one hand these characters are typical aspects of the stereotypical representation of the island in tourist messages and the other hand they represent region identity and regional proud. An interesting result is the minority of the urban environment. These results and importance of drown objects in place identity and landscape project are discussed.

Moving from the most significant contemporary landscape researches (both technical and semantic ones), “Landscape: a tool for regeneration” proposes a reading of social housing in Rome’s suburbs as a part of a natural landscape. This landscape, if recognized, can be used as the method and the material of its own regeneration. The first two parts of this work aim at (1) presenting the different aspects (technical, social and aesthetic) that characterise the natural systems and at (2) studying how the matter of the natural landscape inside urban ecosystem is today analysed. The last part of the research (and the most important one) is a renovation case study over some social housing in the borgata “Santa Maria del Soccorso” in Rome, focused on the use of natural elements and based upon the questions emerged in the previous parts of the work. The project shows how the designing of and with the landscape is one of the most viable way to renovate the social housing stock of the seventies in Rome and in other big cities. Indeed, the various problems related with a “good living” in urban suburbs like the Roman one can be adequately solved through the multilayered uses of these natural elements.

Throughout its rich past of nearly 3500 years Istanbul has always been a saddle of co-existence of various cultures reflecting themselves in the physical environment as built forms with diversified peculiarities. Residential quarters, sacred buildings, schools & hospitals of Muslim, Christian and Jew communities, situated mostly side by side, have always been a source of richness to urban fabric. Like most world cities Istanbul is, at present, subject to rapid transformations due to an ever increasing complexity of the built environment. This is also coupled with the deterioration of the built heritage. In this connection, besides the attempts made for restoration and preservation of historical buildings, most of the derelict industrial premises have only recently been converted to have contemporary uses like museums & culture centers. Several others are also being recognized. This paper will address itself to the issue of new uses for derelict buildings and their application to design pedagogy as an emerging problem of the city.

In October and November 2005, France experienced its worst civil unrest since the student demonstrations and general strike of May 1968. For three weeks riots broke out almost daily throughout the country in response to the deaths of two boys who were electrocuted while being pursued by police in Clichy-sous- Bois, a suburb just outside of Paris. According to media reports, the rioters—mainly young men living in impoverished suburbs of metropolitan France—were retaliating against the police force’s systematic illtreatment of these poor suburbanites, most of whom were darker-skinned. Later, academic accounts of the riots’ root causes would point to lack of viable employment opportunities toughened by pervasive discrimination against these foreign-looking youth. This draft paper offers a preliminary pursuit of answers to several questions about perception, language, identity, and space in the contested areas of French banlieues—used as a pejorative term for crime-ridden and impoverished suburban areas and their inhabitants living on the periphery of metropolitan France. With this work I will endeavor to identify some of the factors that have led to perceptions of marginalization in these suburban French neighborhoods, and the possible structural reinforcements that have perpetuated their marginalized status. The role of physical space (the banlieues) and symbolic/discursive space (official discourse and verlan) as expressions of marginalization will have particular importance here. Additionally, the current initiatives to incorporate surrounding communities into a Grand Paris will be assessed.

Objects like Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste (LILW) Repository are not welcomed in any community and present a typical example of stigmatized object. Their influences on the quality of life in hosted community are therefore mainly negative not only because of the fear connected to nuclear issues but also because of economic consequences caused by stigmatization. In this study a samples of consumers (N=134), tourists (N=117), and real estate appraisers (N=27) were questioned either about their attitudes towards products from stigmatized location in comparison with others, about spending holidays in the vicinity of such a location or about influence of repository on the price of real estate. Real estate prices in nuclear communities are believed to be under strong influence of vicinity of such an object. While in general place of origin is not so important in consumer decisions, if reminded to the LILW repository location, it will strongly influence their buying decisions. Similarly tourists would hardly visit location if in it vicinity is located LILW repository. Only distances over 10 km diminish such an influence. It seems as if LILW repository is the source of contagion. It has even stronger negative influence than nuclear power plant itself, not to mention dumps and similar objects. Findings are explained in the context of stigmatization effects and risk perception.

The fundamental premise of this paper is that the design of interactive systems is, at its heart, a communicative process. Successful design requires communication through discussions, negotiations, compromises between diverse array of people related and integrated somehow to a design project. Designers' tools aiming to improve communication such as, scenario-making, interviews, questionnaires, observations…etc are owned by the designers who develop it, operate it, and manage it from the beginning till the end. Lingua Franca is a common language, that is accessible to all stakeholders especially who are marginalized, aiming to solve and demolish the increasing complexity and diversity of the design process. This tool allows inhabitants of a particular neighborhood to participate in planning their own environment. It replaces the current practice of large-scale intervention by planning authorities, which is usually insensitive to local needs, and frequently results in unlivable environments that are resented for generations afterwards especially in developing countries. The paper demonstrates how Lingua Franca for any design project could be generated by using Pattern Language techniques and patterns, explored by Christopher Alexander. As a case study, a Lingua Franca was formulated and used as a tool to revitalize and improve the urban development of the historical district of Al-Darb Al_Ahmar at Historic Cairo in Egypt. The design project achievements were tested and evaluated to test the efficiency of Lingua Franca to successfully support efficient interactive design that could solve major complexities and diversities of the design project.

It is now 15 years since the seminal work on Place Attachment appeared (Altman and Low, 1992), referring to the typically positive emotional bond between people and valued locations or places. In the intervening period of time, many studies have been conducted on the subject of place attachment in both urban and rural contexts, focusing upon places at different spatial scales (e.g. home, neighbourhood, city, rural area). Research has also taken place on the associated concept of Place Identity (Proshansky et al., 1983), which typically refers to the ways in which particular locations can become important for individuals and groups to create and maintain a positive sense of self or identity. Yet the inter-relation between these concepts is not always clear in the literature, as different studies adopt different conceptual approaches, operationalisation of concepts and methods. Recent work by Stedman (2002), drawing explicitly upon social psychology theory, has begun to make clearer how place attachment and place identity are important influences upon people’s intentions to act. For example, in his research he showed that individuals who were strongly attached to a rural American place and who conceived it to be essentially ‘pristine’ or ‘natural’ were more likely to intend to take ‘place protective’ actions to prevent further housing development in that locality. However, we feel that this aspect of place research needs further examination and analysis, and our symposium aims to deepen understanding of this subject, particularly how the concepts of place attachment and place identity may be implicated in shaping intentions to undertake a range of environmentally significant behaviour (Stern, 2000), including pro-environmental or ecological behaviours, and research in this area is a particular focus of this symposium. The concept of ‘place’ is a conceptual cornerstone not just of the discipline of environmental psychology (Canter, 1977; Bonnes and Secchiaroli, 1995) but also of the field of environment behaviour studies (Sommer, 2000). Whilst there is consensus as to its importance, there is no unifying paradigm to study place in the environment-behaviour field. Rather a plurality of approaches exist (Patterson and Williams, 2005), which is manifest both by the range of place-related terms used in the literature (e.g. sense of place, rootedness, topophilia, placelessness, place attachment, place dependence, displacement, place identity) and by the variety of definitions and interpretations of terms such as place attachment or place identity employed in different studies. In this proposed symposium, we intend to contribute to place theory by bringing together a range of international speakers to focus upon two key concepts: place attachment and place identity, with a particular interest in how these two concepts might link together and how they might link to action, both individual and collective. By doing so, we hope to strengthen the potential for collaboration between environmental psychologists working on place across different European countries. It is now 15 years since the seminal work on Place Attachment appeared (Altman and Low, 1992), referring to the typically positive emotional bond between people and valued locations or places. In the intervening period of time, many studies have been conducted on the subject of place attachment in both urban and rural contexts, focusing upon places at different spatial scales (e.g. home, neighbourhood, city, rural area). Research has also taken place on the associated concept of Place Identity (Proshansky et al., 1983), which typically refers to the ways in which particular locations can become important for individuals and groups to create and maintain a positive sense of self or identity. Yet the inter-relation between these concepts is not always clear in the literature, as different studies adopt different conceptual approaches, operationalisation of concepts and methods. Recent work by Stedman (2002), drawing explicitly upon social psychology theory, has begun to make clearer how place attachment and place identity are important influences upon people’s intentions to act. For example, in his research he showed that individuals who were strongly attached to a rural American place and who conceived it to be essentially ‘pristine’ or ‘natural’ were more likely to intend to take ‘place protective’ actions to prevent further housing development in that locality. However, we feel that this aspect of place research needs further examination and analysis, and our symposium aims to deepen understanding of this subject, particularly how the concepts of place attachment and place identity may be implicated in shaping intentions to undertake a range of environmentally significant behaviour (Stern, 2000), including pro-environmental or ecological behaviours, and research in this area is a particular focus of this symposium. Proposed Symposium Details: Proposer: Dr. Patrick Devine-Wright, University of Manchester Discussant: Maria Vittoria Giuliani (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council) Speakers: Paola Passafaro (University of Rome, Italy) Ferdinando Fornara (University of Cagliari, Sicily)) Patrick Devine- Wright (University of Manchester, UK) Bernardo Hernández (Universidad de La Laguna, Spain)

"Institutions with large physical plants and infrastructure throughout the world are faced with the burden of rapidly rising energy costs. At the same time, many institutions are drawing public pressure to reduce their carbon emissions and become more ""green"" in their operations and product. Educational institutions including universities have extensive networks of buildings and transportation systems and through their educational mandate, are well positioned to demonstrate new initiatives toward attaining these goals. Many universities in the United States have taken steps to address the problem by retrofitting their physical plant, building new structures that follow LEEDS standards, establishing programs that reduce transportation costs, and promoting energy conservation among members of the university community. Some have even conducted experiments aimed at modifying the behavior of their students and faculty. In 2006, the University of Michigan (UM) launched a pilot study designed to better understand energy use and views about energy conservation among its faculty, staff and students. It was suggested that more effective policies and programs could be established if university administrators knew more about the energy consuming practices of these groups and how much they understood about energy reduction initiatives taking place within the university. At the same time, the pilot study could help evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives and inform the planning and design of future initiatives. Following an overview of pilot study that was conducted in five UM buildings, the paper presents a number of its key findings, discusses policy recommendations resulting from those findings, and efforts to implement recommendations. The primary goal of the pilot study was to measure what building occupants know and do with respect to energy use. It also aimed at tapping their views about their own work/study environment, university efforts to date, and issues of global warming. A third objective of the pilot study was to test data collection and measurement procedures that could be applied to other university buildings and their occupants. Measurement procedures included key informant interviews, focus group sessions, behavioral observations and environmental measurements, and web surveys administered to faculty, staff, and students."

This proposal concerns the Psychosocial Monitoring Program [PMP] of a Solid Urban Waste Treatment Station [SUWTS]. The general goal is to depict the way local people’s evaluation of, and adaptation to, outputs of the facility activity (such as air pollution and noise) evolved through time, portraying the utility of psychosocial studies.The PMP purpose is to assure the individuals well-being during the SUWTS everyday activity. To assess it, the following features have been studied: a)potentially problematic aspects to the individuals well-being identified in an Environmental Impact Assessment [EIA] (noise, air pollution and threat), b)comparison of each study with the base-line, and c)existence of vulnerable populations. The theoretical approach that guides this program assumes the psychosocial negative impacts might not come only from objective environmental changes due to the SUWTS functioning but also from the way these are interpreted by individuals. The following analysis model, based on theoretical/empirical grounds, was adopted: the influence of objective environmental features (e.g., noise/air pollution) on psychosocial wellbeing indicators (e.g., anxiety) is tapped through the individuals’ assessment of this objective features (annoyance regarding pollution and risk perception). That assessment is moderated by psychosocial variables that go way beyond those objective features and influence how the individual gives meaning to the SUWTS (such as perceived distance from the SUWTS). The analysis of more than 4000 phone interviews made between 1999 and 2006, using a questionnaire composed by likert type scales, demonstrates that overall results point to a progressive adaptation and depicts the great influence of psychosocial variables on people’s evaluation of environmental objective features. This study is an example of success where was both human resource and administrative capacity to manage the SUWTS various impacts. It documents psychosocial studies utility in giving directions of action regarding the population and avoiding negative and technically “ungrounded” reactions that could influence the SUWTS everyday activities. Psychosocial analysis allows us to scientifically comprehend how lay people judge environmental risks and why there seems to be a gap between these subjective judgments and the objective technical assessments. Communication will only happen if we isolate and understand the principles and motivations behind risk perception.

“Mado,” according to the Creek Native Americans, means “things in balance,” and this is both the name and intention for the latest hamlet planned for Serenbe Community located in southwest Atlanta, Georgia. In a charrette conducted in July of 2006, the mission statement generated for this hamlet stated that it’s purpose was to create a residential community that is in harmony with nature, that has an inherent design that encourages healthy living, that supports the commercial development of health and wellness services which are fully integrated into the very fabric of the hamlet, and that combine the best of east and west healing practices. In July of 2007 a series of meetings were conducted with various housing and health services consultants in order to develop a realistic program of activities appropriate to the scale of this hamlet. This presentation reports on the results of these meetings and how they informed the evolving design for this hamlet. Mado is planned for 212 residents and a number of health related facilities. Among these are a community swimming pool, daycare, fitness center, therapeutic pool, spa, recuperative hotel, vegetarian restaurant, greenhouses, medical offices, east/west pharmacy, and small live/work units for small specialty practices, such as, acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine or Jin Sin Jitsu. In addition to the residents, the hamlet will house an 80-unit assisted living complex with some memory and skilled nursing care, will provide stacked flats for independent living, and will introduce a new housing product line of small affordable houses. There is a one-mile running/exercise trail that encircles the wetlands in the center of the omega. Critical to the design was the balance between optimum facilities’ sizes, efficiencies and parking requirements and the scale of allowable land areas given by the site and hamlet design. Conventional wisdom would indicate that current economic models do not work for the development ideas at Serenbe. However, Serenbe continues to demonstrate that the planning for small, integrated mix-use communities can work, and in fact, is a real success.

The presence of courtyards with their place-bounded and life-affirming characteristics is becoming more important in contemporary Mediterranean cities, which are in need of contextual consolidation and transformative processes for new developments that could be done without loosing the basis and the memory of their ecological existence. As the core of the basic living unit (house), courtyard constitutes a sophisticated spatial construct with all levels of both interaction and separation between the domestic and the wild, inside and outside, self identity and culture, privacy and publicity. It forms a contact ground between man, nature and cosmos. The role of the courtyards within the city fabric are essential at that point because of their capacity to embody this basic ecological and life-generating essence united and assimilated in their built form. Although under the pressure of fast urban sprawl, the courtyard houses of the city of Antakya, which are the leading actors in this study, are expressing unique values of biodiversity in a city center that is still home to a multicultural community, their houses of worship, public and private institutions. This study is an attempt to explore a more comprehensive understanding of the role of courtyards where the human impact, in forming them and living in them, can be taken as an ecological factor in generating and maintaining biodiversity in urban landscape of that particular eastern Mediterranean city. If courtyards can be considered as the primary unit of the city -the larger context which is ecologically and socially producedthen a study on the courtyard houses of Antakya, based on experiences of living quality of these special places, may give a chance to discover the ecological and social links between the natural and cultural evolution of the urban fabric, and to reveal the archetype which is offering unique opportunities for urban biodiversity.

Malls constitute outstanding elements of the urban landscapes, not only for their presence in the built environment, but also for the human activities they comprise. Malls also could reflect new forms of symbolic space appropriation, what offers an opportunity to analyze the role shopping centers play in citizens’ perception and attitudes towards using, appropriating, and participating in public spaces. Based upon these ideas, preliminary data coming from interviews and a group discussion with 21 students of Environmental Psychology is presented. Specifically, we describe the malls and commercial areas from Barcelona city that are evaluated as more and less attractive, the activities performed at them, and the perception of satisfaction these activities report. Comparing the use of malls and commercial areas with that of parks and neighborhood stores, makes possible to call the attention about what malls imply in contemporary and globalized social life.

My doctoral project is in the field of landscape management, more specifically public outdoor playgrounds. I am studying playground provision, how it has developed, what value it has to its users and how to give users the maximum benefit possible. Since this field of research is rather new and very interdisciplinary, I am trying to position it and to find a combination between traditions and methods, management and user perceptions, and playgrounds as a resource and an element in the physical landscape. There are many reasons for studying playground management. Playgrounds are one example of places in the outdoor environment provided by local authorities for the public, but also by adults for children. Playground development is recent history; in Sweden playgrounds have been affected by norms of distance and content since the 1950s. Management of existing playgrounds is a question to be solved for many local authorities: norm thinking is disappearing and safety demands increasing. Many things can be studied: 1) Existing playgrounds – as resources and as physical places, 2) users (children, parents, preschool staff) and 3) managers (all organisational levels). To obtain context-bound information with variables in all three of these sectors, case studies were chosen. The aim is to find practically useful knowledge of how to make the management of existing playgrounds create better opportunities for play and to quantify the value existing play resources generate to their users. How can playground managers give users more ‘play for the money’, through norms and strategies, more knowledge about users or collaborative management methods?

Playgrounds are designated areas for children in the public outdoor environment. They have been criticised for reflecting a stereotypical perspective on children instead of children’s own perspectives or needs, and for reinforcing the message that children are not supposed to play in the rest of the public environment. Children of different ages and others who visit playgrounds are rarely actively asked how they actually perceive them and what preferences they have. However, it is important that playground managers hear the voices of users if playgrounds are to become part of the sustainable local environment and actually add opportunities for play and well-being. The aim of this research project is to investigate whether playground use and playground users can be understood, in order to create a play provision that contributes to a better life environment. Is there a need for public playgrounds and if so, what is needed? What can users teach managers? Case studies of playground provision and potential users (school children, parents of preschool children and staff at preschool groups) were conducted. To get a holistic and complex picture of the use, the studies were limited to two small communities, and information was collected from a substantial proportion of the actual users. The next step will be to study the perspectives of playground managers, which is an ongoing project. A few children dismissed playground use as boring, but the rest of the users surveyed claimed to use local playgrounds. The following differences between the user groups were discovered: •Children described playgrounds as social places, but were also interested in the equipment and the physical play. Variation between playgrounds was preferred. Access to alternative places for play - specially green areas - was popular •Preschool groups wanted playgrounds where many children could be activated. •Parents preferred playgrounds close to the home. Some parents used playgrounds for socialising and meeting others. All the groups surveyed used public playgrounds, and playground use had social dimensions for children and parents. However, playgrounds appeared to be insufficient as children’s only place for outdoor play. Children have much to say about playgrounds, and playground managers could learn much by consulting and involving users and by uncovering the differences there are between user groups

Managing Urban Diversities? Integrating social, economic and ecological perspectives Urban Diversity has multiple perspectives such as economic diversity, social (and cultural) diversity of the population, or biodiversity. While these concepts share the assumption that urban diversity and heterogeneity has crucial influence on quality of life and well-being, each perspective has its own focus. The economic perspective attaches value to diversity in cities as sources of economic growth (Quigley 1998). Social diversity is associated with the creation of identities in the city and opportunities for social integration, but is likewise increasingly linked to economic prospects as a strategy for marketing by city managers (UN Habitat 2004). Taking into account the quantity and quality of urban green and open spaces the ecological diversity can be considered (among others their function of balancing the urban climate) and is linked to economic and social aspects, performing e.g. recreational functions. The current phase of social and economic transformation in Latin American cities changes the conditions for enhancing urban quality of life of people across space with both positive and negative effects. Drawing on the three cases presented in the symposium, the presentation provides a synthesis of these ambivalent trends and outlines the inherent challenges to managing multiple urban diversities. It discusses how different perspectives - economic, social and ecological – can constitute an approach to urban governance that deliberately embraces the positive effects of each of these three concepts. It argues that such an approach needs to take into account the complexity of interaction between the different spheres of urban life from an interdisciplinary perspective. It derives a set of principles for respective policy emphasizing spatial and temporal scales as key elements. Literature: John M. Quigley: Urban Diversity and Economic Growth. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring, 1998), pp. 127-138 UN Habitat (2004) The State of the World’s Cities. Globalization and Urban Culture. London: Earthscan

This paper explores the relation of everyday cultural and morphological contexts of heterotopias in the city of Tainan, the old capital of Taiwan, in order to better understand the cultural continuity of the city. Extending Michel Foucault’s original idea, the term heterotopia is used in Grahame Shane’s recent urban theory to explain the urban elements that can act as stimuli to urban growth and evolution. Tainan has a multi-cultural colonial background. The older parts of its urban fabric, developed since the Dutch Colonial Era in the 17th century, overlap with the urban plan developed in Japanese Colonial Era. Since, the urban structure has also changed significantly. However, the social structure in the area still maintains an intimate interaction with the old urban fabric. Within this interaction, temple courtyard spaces act in crucial roles to provide heterotopic functions. The paper argues that these heterotopic contexts should be maintained to enable the cultural continuity. Therefore, the temple courtyards and their surrounding fabrics must be conserved. The paper chooses three temple courtyards as case studies. Using morphological data and observations of everyday life in these spaces, their special interdependent relations can be explored. The three cases are the Yunghua, Zhonggan, and Haian temple courtyards, all built in 18th century, and are situated, respectively, in the center of the walled city, near the wall, and outside the wall. After the wall was demolished in the early 20th century, the temples’ meaning for the region has changed along with the transformation of the urban structure. Today, the three temple courtyards are located in the city center, surrounded by commercial developments, and situated in unique residential and commercial mixed fabrics. Because of the different intensities of their commercial settings, the three courtyards have developed very different living cultures. The paper compares three sets of morphological maps and 24-hour everyday life using cinematic mapping techniques. Instead of traditional quantitative methodologies, visual techniques are used to analyze the collected data of empirical observations. This allows analysis of those factors that are difficult to represent through quantitative methods, such as cultural characteristics and everyday tactics. Finally, everyday stories in different heterotopic morphological contexts can be discussed through this comparative methodology using of visual mapping.

In October and November 2005, France experienced its worst civil unrest since the student demonstrations and general strike of May 1968. For three weeks riots broke out almost daily throughout the country in response to the deaths of two boys who were electrocuted while being pursued by police in Clichy-sous- Bois, a suburb just outside of Paris. According to media reports, the rioters—mainly young men living in impoverished suburbs of metropolitan France—were retaliating against the police force’s systematic illtreatment of these poor suburbanites, most of whom were darker-skinned. Later, academic accounts of the riots’ root causes would point to lack of viable employment opportunities toughened by pervasive discrimination against these foreign-looking youth. This draft paper offers a preliminary pursuit of answers to several questions about perception, language, identity, and space in the contested areas of French banlieues—used as a pejorative term for crime-ridden and impoverished suburban areas and their inhabitants living on the periphery of metropolitan France. With this work I will endeavor to identify some of the factors that have led to perceptions of marginalization in these suburban French neighborhoods, and the possible structural reinforcements that have perpetuated their marginalized status. The role of physical space (the banlieues) and symbolic/discursive space (official discourse and verlan) as expressions of marginalization will have particular importance here. Additionally, the current initiatives to incorporate surrounding communities into a Grand Paris will be assessed.

Facing the periphery topic, its identity and shape, in the present urban configuration of the contemporary urban cities, means to understand development and expansion dynamics that have characterized cities starting from industrialization, and that have defined a new form of urban style that is no more recognizable in a determined territory, but it is shaped like a total “urbanesimo”, in which the different spaces and places assume various connotations and often appear hierarchical and with various levels of territorial qualities and life.Diversities however are translated in inequalities, no only regarding yield distribution, roles, job, assignments, prestige, but also the relationship between the spread and distribution of some assets and their nature, the relationship between distribution of the social groups, individuals and activities in the places of the cities and the nature of the same places.The analysis of the configuration that the periphery has got today changes the definition and the relation that they have with the centre of the city. Development of public residential building, often based on a homogenous, repetitive, essential architectonic model and that is developed on great compounds, marks in many cities the periphery urbanistic texture with intensive constructions of buildings plenty of modular rooms, lacking in identity and identification, mostly intended to satisfy one need (need of home) but very often far from satisfying the other fundamental need: living. The periphery, in this phase of social change that characterizes european cities, beyond being far often is detached from the rest of the city and it is seen as a separate body (and, therefore, segregated), because it often collects and identifies economically marginal, or social, or culturally social figures, regarding the rest of the city, and, often, it recomposes in itself the three dimensions of the marginality.

The perceived quality of the built environment is directly related to feelings of comfort and well-being as well as to aesthetic satisfaction. It has often been shown that perception and evaluation of the built environment differ strongly between those who are responsible for its design – architects and planners – on the one hand, and those who use it – laypeople – on the other. Two studies were carried out to take a closer look at differences in the perspectives of experts and laypeople on architecture. In contrast to earlier studies we focussed exclusively on the aspect of building material. Exposed concrete was chosen as the material of interest, as there is a multitude of anecdotal evidence highlighting the controversial connotations of this material, while systematic research is lacking so far. Exposed concrete has had high significance amongst architects ever since the late 1950s, when the so-called brutalist architecture introduced it as an authentic means of expression. The first study was a quasi-experimental design and was conducted on-site. N = 90 laypersons were interviewed vis-a-vis one of two different, prominent examples of exposed concrete architecture in the governmental district of Berlin. The main difference between the two buildings was colour, one being grey, the other reddish. The subjects answered several open-ended questions. A content analysis of the answers revealed a predominance of negative attributes connected to the material, with coldness, dullness and shabbiness among the most often used. In the case of the reddish building the evaluations were generally more positive, and a considerable amount of subjects did not even recognize the material as concrete. Obviously the perceived greyness of the material constitutes an essential part of its general representation. In the second study, these differences were confirmed by a systematic comparison of architects (N = 70) and non-architects (N = 72) by means of a content-specific semantic differential and additional open questions. Here, no specific examples were presented, instead the subjects were expected to judge the material in general. Experts’ connotations were significantly more positive on practically all items. Factor analyses showed that the dimensional structure of connotations is different between architects and laypeople. The pattern of results can be conclusively explained as a consequence of professional education and the demands of architectural practice.

This investigation integrates the latest scientific thinking concerning how vegetation mitigates air pollution with urban design. Its aim is to see if the amount of vegetation required to mitigate air pollution in residential areas is compatible with the principles of good urban design. It is generally acknowledged that vegetation improves air quality by absorbing air pollution. However, there is scant information available to built environment professionals on how vegetation can be used to mitigate air pollution in quantitative or spatial terms. This study explores this issue in relation to urban design, so that vegetation can be used in a more meaningful way to enhance the environment and create better places. Secondary research was conducted on the topics of air quality in the English land use planning system, air pollution, vegetation and air quality, and urban design. Trees were identified as the best plants to remove air pollution because of their large leaf areas compared to the ground areas that they cover and because of their aerial structures, which create more turbulent mixing of the air passing over them than shorter vegetation types. Quantitative data and other useful information were collated into a Framework of tree species to assess the meaningfulness of landscape in reducing air pollution. This was used to identify the amount of pollution absorbed by trees and the most efficient species for a range of pollutants at typical and likely maximum concentrations. A research method was designed to calculate how many trees were required to mitigate a range of pollutants in the atmosphere for a theoretical residential area that conformed to the principles of urban design. This area was tested to see whether the numbers of trees could be incorporated within it. The outcomes showed that, in general, coniferous species remove more air pollution than broadleaf species and some species, such as oak and London plane, can contribute to air pollution by emitting Volatile Organic Compounds. Trees remove more air pollution at higher concentrations; therefore, they are most effective when planted near to sources of air pollution, such as along roadsides near to traffic. Consequently, the urban design principles that will have the most influence on tree planting to reduce air pollution are those that concern streets and public spaces, such as continuity and enclosure, quality of the public realm and legibility.

Our earlier studies have shown that besides distance, green space quality as experienced by users is very important in explaining green space use. But what is this experienced quality exactly? Can we measure it? And how can we use this knowledge in planning, designing and managing urban green space? To be able to work with the experience concept in urban green space planning Berggren-Bärring & Grahn (1995) developed 8 park characteristics based on a large survey of urban park use in 3 Swedish cities. The 8 characteristics were described with a mix of words related to both the abstract experience as well as the physical environment causing the experience. Since 1995, the 8 park characteristics have been further the developed by Grahn and his colleagues, slightly changing in content and exact wording over the years. The 8 characteristics have not specifically been developed for use as a practical tool by city planners or landscape architects, and using them in practise proved to be rather difficult. Several practical applications inspired by, and to a certain extent based on, the 8 park characteristics have been developed over the years in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. And all these methods have in common that they use the characteristics of the physical environment associated with the experiences to identify the green space value. However, when the green space values identified in this manner should be ‘translated’ back into user experiences and benefits related to these experiences, problems arise since the relation between physical characteristics and experiences is not 1:1. To overcome this problem, we developed a method that takes its starting point in the ‘other side’ of the original 8 park characters; the abstract experience. We went back to the original 8 park characters and tried to identify the ‘abstract experience’ behind each of them. And since abstract experiences are subjective, we opted for the development of a method in which an expert goes out to each green space and estimates which experience a visitor would receive there. To test the validity and usability of our method, we compared the results of questionnaires among 2300 users of 20 urban green spaces in 5 Danish municipalities with the results of our expert quality assessment in the same 20 areas. Our results show a high correlation between the experiences reported by users and experienced recorded by experts.

Sustainability, by definition, requires the usage of resources in their most efficient form. Sustainability can be achieved through efficiently organized urban form and efficient space-filling. Studies showed that the efficiency of urban form can measured using fractal dimensions of the built-up urban areas. Fractals are spatial entities that are irregular in terms of geometry and independent from scale. Fractal dimension is a quantitative measure of the efficiency of space-filling. As the city grows, its fractal dimension is expected to increase as the city becomes increasingly dense, using the three dimensional space more efficiently (Ball, 2004). Batty and Longley (1987) showed that the fractal dimension of London has increased from 1.32 to 1.79 between the years 1820 and 1962, indicating a better form of spatial organization and more efficient space-filling. This paper examines the urban space-filling efficiency of Safranbolu, which is one of the 138 historic cities listed in UNESCO’s World Heritage List, using its fractal dimensions to investigate in which time period the urban form had the most efficient form of spatial organization. Time series spatial data pertaining the years between 1960 and 2007 are utilized. A systematic analysis of planar urban fractal dimensions of Safranbolu is derived for 5 different time periods using the Box-Counting Fractal Dimension algorithm (Shen, 1997). The data used in the study were derived from the digital and hardcopy aerial photographs available from the Municipality of Safranbolu. The photographs were first refined using image processor software, Photohop version 6, and then scaled, registered, and vectorized using GIS software, ArcGIS 9. The fractal dimensions are then calculated for each time period using fractal analysis software, Fractalyse. The results are parallel to the claims in the literature. The city of Safranbolu has moved from a less efficient spatial organization and space-filling to a more efficient one between the years 1960 and 2007. This achievement towards a more sustainable type of urban form is an expected result of population increase and increased density through modern planning efforts.

The history of the city has been entwined with history of media developments. There has been little systematic planning linking communication technology and quality of life issues. Just as technologies become obsolete, so can cities. The city is a place reflecting and projecting technological change, particularly in terms of transportation and communication. As resilient and timeless as the form and function of the city may seem, layers of technologies incrementally erode the form, function and grasp a city can have on people. For many, unwired cities are outdated relics of the past and only fully adapted, state of the art connected cities will offer the opportunities valued by its users. Media have the power to loosen the grip of the physical environment allowing interaction dislocated from place. Ironically the continued value of cities may come through ubiquitous mobile connection. But have the fundamental functions of a city changed? As city infrastructure changes, does the concept of sustainability change as a result of the increasing presence of communication technology? This paper traces developments in the physical urban infrastructure and media infrastructure to explore the reciprocal relationship each has had upon each other in terms of quality of life.

The term collaborative cannot be used to typify the relationship between architecture and planning in Melbourne, Australia, or more widely in the Anglophone contemporary urban tradition. This paper comments on Melbourne 2030 (the latest plan for the city of Melbourne released by the Victorian Government), to which architects have not formally contributed. The process and text of Melbourne 2030 provides an important exemplary case from which the relationship between planners and architects in Victoria, Australia and the architects’ contribution to the city can be explored. Rather than judging Melbourne 2030, this paper discusses the reasons why architects are excluded or self-exclude from contributing to city policy. It contends that architects have not fully understood the relationship between architecture and the city as a social and collaborative process, it explores some of the causes and suggests avenues to address this issue.

City Development (CD) considers the history and global structural development of an urban site in its economic, cultural, and ecological aspects with regards to demographic changes. The latest Virtual Reality (VR) techniques can support the solution of such concerns rendering entire cities and featuring different possibilities for interaction. This represents an effective tool for CD in city planning, artistic development, and documentation, protection of historical monuments, and promotion of the touristic aspect. We realized a versatile workflow for representing virtual urban environments considering the various CD fields. The scenarios are realized starting from the normal GIS 2D data. The different city entities are grouped in polygons getting the third dimension (i.e. the height). The consistency to the architectural constraints is in this way guaranteed, allowing meanwhile to explore the urban environment from all points of view. The 3D objects obtained are finally textured by means of pictures of the real counterpart. The rendering is performed by our VR platform, the VDT. Considering the requirements for each scenario, the effort is focused on specific aspects. In city planning the interactivity and mobility are privileged to get a glimpse of the options to be taken. For touristic and marketing purposes a high degree of immersion is to be achieved, while in city documentation and monument protection it is better to get a great amount of details. As an example we introduce here a virtual representation of Eisleben. The user is brought along monuments, houses, and recently renewed spots. A prospect of suggestions for the new tourist centre building is dynamically shown, so to display their matching with the existing preserved environment. 3D sounds and music effects and particular viewpoints increase the immersitivity of the scenario for city promotion. The attention paid to the details turns the representation into historical evidence for the site preservation. Another scenario represents the landscape around the coal mine of Geiseltal. Here, the use of virtual technologies for intuitive and comprehensive representation of a whole region supports its development. Taking account of the past situation in the VR model, this former contaminated mine site can be transformed in a modern tourist region. As noticeable, a proper use of the techniques of virtual representation can support the improvement of our cities living conditions and development.

A quali-quantitative study was conducted to characterize the recent movement of Brazilian migrants to the city of São Paulo. The study was based on the analysis of the strategic capacity for incorporation, adaptation and satisfaction. 110 migrants were interviewed (open and closed questions) about national and intra-urban flows; characteristics and profiles; forms and duration of permanence; support networks; reasons and expectations. Three focal groups were conducted in order to expand the analysis. Information derived from open questions was organized into seven semantic categories in a total of 43 items of possible answers to each one of the 110 participants. Information collected from closed questions was organized in a system composed by the mapping of 31 dimensions (semantic categories and variables) in a total of 321 items of possible answers to each subject. A factorial mathematical analysis was made to identify clusters characterizing a typology of the migrants as to the migrants' satisfaction related to age and dreams. Adaptation and satisfaction seem to depend on the migrants' strategic capacity to transform accessible elements of material and non-material conditions to channel their actions in order to meet their goals.

Mobility and the feeling of security: The case of elderly in Genoa Antida Gazzola, Ph.D., Professor, University of Genoa, Roberta Prampolini, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Sassari, Italy Fear and perception of insecurity are terms clashing with the quality of life searched by all individuals “dwelling” their own city. In the case of elderly, the contrast is even stronger because of the particular needs regarding medical assistance, transportation and socialization. If quality of life rimes with universal access and use of urban resources and potentialities, it should be granted to more fragile citizens such as elders. Indeed, these latter will experience a more satisfactory life if they can enjoy a rich relationship to the city, with the opportunities it provided. In this respect, the mobility of aging individuals can be considered as an indicator of their independence. Elderly facing physical ageing and weakening, losing their autonomy, and experiencing a sense of uselessness and ostracism, can easily feel a strong sense of insecurity. A common reaction is to irreparably reduce mobility, together with associated social and urban life activities. This can result in depression and withdrawal into the realm of family or in the institution where they live. The loss of mobility thus reduces the possibilities for elders to increase their social capital. Fearing the risks associated with social urban life, they will self-limit their mobility and indirectly reduce their relationships to relatives, friends and neighbors. As a consequence, their social capital, earned during a whole life, will in a pathological way get thinner and thinner. In this context, the opportunity of a reasonable and reassuring urban mobility becomes a pillar for pursuing the development of social capital and avoiding social exclusion. The results of a qualitative survey conducted in two periurban neighoborhoods of Genoa (“Fiumara”, inside the city limits, and Recco, outside the city limits) with 32 “key informants” aged over 65, emphasize the strong relationship between level of autonomy, sense of insecurity and the possibilities to move in the city, even for those individuals who do not have their own transportation facilities.

In light of climate change and other environmental problems being caused by car use, it is important to seek for opportunities to weaken car-use routines and redirect travel mode choice into an environmentally more benign direction. One way to stimulate behaviour change is to wait for changes in the personal life conditions or the external mobility context to happen, both of which have proven to potentially weaken mobility routines, and then to implement information-based “soft policies” in order to convince people to behave differently. However, though already having been discussed in the literature for quite some time, the reach of this approach as well as the timely relatedness of context change, routine weakening processes, information seeking activities and behavioural adaptation still remain unclear. We conducted a qualitative interview study and chose residential relocations as one important change moment in a person’s life which possibly influences daily travel behaviour. In half-standardised interviews following the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), respondents have been asked about their mobility behaviour before and after the move, reasons for the move and location choice as well as information seeking activities about diffe¬rent transport alternatives at the new living place. We could show that the longer the time span between the relocation and our interview the more spontaneous and consistent the answers on travel mode choice were and the less information was searched. The results hint on habit weakening processes around the time of relocation and a continuous re-fixation afterwards. However, most interviewees did not explicitly aim to change their behaviour after the move, but instead strived towards a continuation of old routines. They did so by different measures, either by completely ignoring mobility-relevant attributes when making a location choice or by thoroughly planning post-relocation mobility behaviour already before the move. A typology of different mobility planners / information seekers in temporal relation to moving house will be presented. Implications for the design of soft policies based on information spreading about “greener” mobility alternatives will be discussed.

"The contemporary society, defined from Beck as a society of risk, is crossed from a deep sense of restlessness and uncertainty that invests not only the spaces of the political and social life but also those of the private life of the single citizens. This sense contributes, along with the “ipermediatizzazione” of the events and security politics, to the creation of an anxyogen urban scenario and to the emphasis of social alarm. The present city is the panic city, lacking of its old human dimension, it is the “bunkered” and “babelized” city that loses its points of reference and implode. It is the post-modern city that it based on the principle of indifference and that, refusing the unitary understanding of the truth, destroys the hinges of the modern political thought, using models of fragmentation of knowledge and acquaintance. A society therefore structured, distracted, indifferent and of the “laissez faire”, easily introduces the development mechanisms of control and to the loss of independence of the media. The essential instrument of this strategy of control is the continuous ""construction"" of the emergency and the mediatic panic and the increase of the social risks that invests individuals. The panic shape that mainly seems to characterize our age is just the moral panic, that can be defined by five fundamental criteria: a heightened level of concern over the behaviour of certain group and the consequences that such behaviour can produce for the rest of the society, an increased level of hostility to the behaviour in question, a widespread consensus that the threat is real, a disproportionality between the real risk and the perceived risk, and an ephemeral character of the phenomenon: it erupt fairly suddenly and nearly as suddenly, subside. Therefore, the social control representation goes through the location of the ""public enemy"" (or folk devil as called by Cohen) and takes to a moral panic state, through integralist offensives against an episode or a group of individuals are identified as a threat to the values of society."

This research is interested about environmental compatibility and natural environment as one of the most important resources of tourist development and during the increasing recognition of tourist development the synchronization between development returning and accumulation of negative environmental consequences was missing. A new type of tourism appeared during the last decade, many tourists were not interested anymore in the classic type of tourism, and instead they started to prefer another type of tourism one that can bind them with nature and local cultures, this type of tourism is referred to as environmental tourism. In this research environmental tourism was focused on through a special type of tourism referred to as Motels and Road houses tourism on the high ways which enjoys a special nature regarding its location and the importance of the environmental compatibility location in the desert

The cognitive and behavioural determinants of human movement in the built environment have been a subject of investigation by environmental researchers, cognitive psychologists as well as architects and urban planners for several decades. Human movement in the built environment can be highly faceted, depending on environmental factors and the task structure of the human agent. For example, researchers are looking at both wayfinding and free exploration of indoor as well as outdoor environments. Wayfinding can be defined as the process to navigate through a chosen route that connects an origin to a destination. It is a target-directed process that implies to determine and correctly place the starting position, identify the favourite or correct route, constantly monitor this route during the way, and properly recognize the destination when it has been reached. Any phase of this process requires the performer to read, understand, interpret, and correctly use environmental cues. To do so, travellers use various spatial, behavioural and cognitive abilities, and use several kinds of environmental cues, depending on the variety of the task, and/or on the characteristics of the navigation setting (e.g., city vs. building). For tasks with less clearly restricted goal characteristics, like free exploration of a new environment or the planning of multi-stop shopping trips in large-scale malls the interplay of environmental, cognitive and motivational factors will vary. Studies in this field have approached differently the question of how people select and read environmental cues: E.g., they focus more on social or physical characteristics of the environment, use different kinds of instruments to approach the topic through field studies or laboratory experiments, and target more social or cognitive aspects of the performance. Furthermore, this issue has been approached by different disciplines as architecture, urban planning, cognitive and environmental psychology. In fact the papers in this symposium represent contributions from these four disciplines. The symposium aims to collect studies that deepen the subject matter from different points of view. It includes contributions that investigated wayfinding both in indoor and in outdoor built environments, considering either the role of physical or social cues in aiding people to read familiar and not-familiar environments.

Over the past decade or so, growing awareness among researchers of the relations between tourism, culture, and natural resources resulted in a substantial body knowledge that examines and articulates different mechanisms to address these relations. The very general concept of environmentally sustainable tourism or ecotourism has been studied thoroughly in the literature through a wide spectrum of paradigms including approaches, methods, theoretical positions, and practical guiding principles. However, very little is known on what these paradigms are and on their actual contribution to the development of visions that achieve ecotourism basic premises. Concomitantly, the assumption of this paper is that there is a multiplicity of views on how ecotourism strategic plans, infrastructure, and facilities that all contribute to addressing the dialectic relationship between people and environments. Thus, the objective is to explore these approaches while highlighting their input in the ecotourism development process. The methodology adopted in this paper is multilayered and involves two major procedures. The first is a preliminary inductive analysis of a considerable number of documents developed by government agencies, NGOs, international bodies, and consulting firms. Such a procedure aims at identifying and defining multiple paradigms for addressing ecotourism. This resulted in identifying multiple paradigmatic approaches that include impressionisticindicative evaluations, case based and cross case analyses, awareness based mechanisms, interpretation of place approach, best practices and demonstration projects approach, among others. . The second is to map and examine such identification on ten research papers published recently as part of a special issue of Open House International titled: Ecolodges and Ecotourism: Planning and Designing Environmentally Friendly Facilities of Tourism. This procedure involves a rigorous content analysis procedure that aims at examining the multiple paradigms identified while highlighting their very essence in contributing to a deeper insight of ecotourism potentials, opportunities, principles, and practices. The outcome of this paper offers an in-depth understanding of current interests, research issues on ecotourism development and its supporting infrastructure and facilities. It serves as a primer for researchers and policy makers while suggesting potential areas for initiating and conducting future research.

Within an interdisciplinary dialogue representatives of different scientific disciplines will discuss current trends, problems and chances to grasp the diverse urban development pathways in large Latin American cities. The focus is directed on the interplay of social questions and the use of scarce natural resources, embedded in economic constraints. Regarding economic frame conditions, the representative of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in the United Nations will describe the chances for more sustainable oriented urban development. He will introduce the new instrument SEUM - a sustainable economic urban management tool kit. Segregation patterns and their impacts on social integration or exclusion introduce the different approaches to environmental resources, exemplified on land use and green spaces. On the base of empirical investigations on local level, specifics as well as transferable approaches, research methods and results will be discussed. Case study findings generated in Santiago de Chile/ Chile and Buenos Aires/ Argentina serve as illustrations for the derivation of typical Latin American development patterns. To include the several aspects we used different methods like surveys and interviews for explaining social patterns; as well as mapping in case of describing changing land use patterns and assessing the quality and the accessibility of green spaces. It is the aim of the symposium to highlight practice oriented governance advices and policy recommendations to integrate the multiple urban diversities of metropolitan areas. 1. Introduction (S. Kabisch, 7 min.) 2. Economic preconditions and influences on urban development in Latin America and the Caribbean, R. Jordan, 15 min.) 3. Chances of sustainable quality of life in a sociospatial segregated urban environment (F. Sabatini, 15 min.) 4. Steering land use diversity and green spaces to guarantee urban well-being K. Krellenberg, 15 min.) 5. Conclusions: Managing Urban Diversities? Integrating social, economic and environmental perspectives (D. Heinrichs, 7 min)

This paper is focused on the local sustainability approach involved in the local plan. Local sustainability can be defined as the chance by an intervention on the building-environmental system of locally fostering the relationship between natural value, considered as the sum of all the intervention’s positive impacts in terms of environmental compatibility, cultural and natural improvement, induced social and economic effects, and total costs, considered as the sum of production costs, management costs, social costs through time, building deconstruction or refurbishment. The ‘local’ concept of sustainability plays a key role in adapting choices and actions to prearranged aims. This term relates to the territorial context in which the intervention lays, identified by an integrated framework of social, cultural, environmental and landscape elements. The boundaries of such a context can’t be outlined in a clear and ultimate way, because of the ever-changing of its own components. In order to test the local acceptation of sustainability as practice, we are working on the implementation of Green Building Challenge (GBC), an international project initiated in 1998 by a group of researchers from University of British Columbia and Natural Resources Canada. The GBC process has now been through two cycles: the first phase has been called GBC ’98, instead the second one is named GBC 2000. Starting from the comparison with other already existing assessment methods, such as LEED or BREEAM, the first objective of the working group was to overcome the shortcomings of those tools tied to contingent needs and designed to achieve pragmatic aims. The purpose was to integrate a number of heterogeneous performance issues in a unique consistent framework. The second objective was to integrate new issues not adequately been considered until then, such as indoor environmental quality, building’s longevity, etc. An another new element compared to existing evaluation methods was the international nature of the project, which could bring an exchange of information and results otherwise confined to a either national or regional context. The working hypothesis under development consists in designing a method extended to the building’s context, in order to optimize not only the building itself but also the area in which the latter is placed and the respective urban connections. Indeed, despite the constant references to sustainability, the GBC suggested method is focused on the assessment of environmental building performance. The working group is nevertheless oriented at regarding the health of the biosphere, that is its ability to maintain its own functional integrity and to remain biologically productive, as the limiting factor for sustainability and its prerequisite. This layout is stemmed from the belief that the economic and social issues which complete, together with the environmental one, the complex notion of sustainability, can’t be usefully assessed at the scale of an individual building. The developed case study allows a concrete description of the formulated hypothesis and the played out research.

Nature is often considered to be separate from day-to-day human affairs. But as more people live in urban areas, and undeveloped areas are transformed into residential neighborhoods, it is important to consider the experiences with nature available to urban dwellers. Can the benefits of nature be experienced by urban residents? The present symposium is designed to examine different ways in which urban dwellers experience nature. We will describe the range of benefits experienced by urban residents who visit urban-proximate wilderness areas. We will also examine the impact of zoo visits on enhancing a sense of connectedness toward nature, on transmitting social values and on fulfilling personal needs. Finally we will consider the role of urban parks in enhancing residential satisfaction in the surrounding neighborhood. Each paper will contribute to an understanding of the function and value of green spaces in urban and surrounding areas.

The clear advantages of wind power, solar farms and so on, from an ecological perspective have influenced a somewhat false optimism in relation to its social acceptance. While several studies have found favourable social attitudes towards wind energy, it is evident that social conflicts resulting from the development of new plants are becoming more frequent, especially when the territorial distribution of the plants is not perceived as equitable. It is, thus, necessary to considerate the social dimension of wind power, focusing on issues such as the territorial planning, the communication transparency or the participation of local communities. A review of the studies conducted by the authors draws some very relevant conclusions on the importance of the social dimension when planning and developing new facilities, including a set of recommendations for managers and public authorities Keywords: Energy, Social Movements, Environmental Conflicts, Environmental Management

The cities, and what they generate in terms of spaces, practical, knowledge and ways of governance, are currently changing dimension, geographic extension, dynamics and relationships of scale between the parts that compose them. An urban phenomenon that is modifying the way of thinking the city, in Europe and in the world, and that proposes new challenges to city planners, to public powers, to local administrators, to enterprises, and sure also to citizens: which are new plans for cities of tomorrow and for inhabitants that live in? which is the conformation to preview for cities in continuous expansion? which future for city plan, in continuous comparison between planning and spontaneous increase? Naturally the caught up complexity of contemporary urban civilization faced also with new city flows that answer to economic, social and cultural logics, more and more world-wide. City becomes metropolitan region, operating a jump of dimensional scale and complexity. In the same moment in which great projects are reactivated in the cities, with requalification of the interstitial and forgotten zones, with the rethinks of encounter places, is necessary that city’s topics debate becomes multidisciplinary and opened to different professional cultures of which cities need today in order to rethink, organize, govern and invent themselves. New topographies, new ecosystems and social dynamics are asserted in more and more connected spaces. Segregations, migrations and temporary conditions design a not homogenous system that can lead to folding or protest, to violence or marginalization. The requirements of a patrimony to renew in European cities, the necessary modernization of infrastructures, to remain competitive and attractive, planning and requalification of habitat and landscapes, integration of migratory dynamics that modifies urban society, indispensable development and deployment of services near the citizens whose age and identities change, defy those which is up responsibility to govern same cities. But city is also interpretable like sum of different elements and space’s conditions: public spaces, road, green spaces, urban empty, but also full loads, volumes, buildings with theirs different functions. In the “lessico urbano” housing has a role of strategic importance: it is, without doubt, fundamental element of city landscape writing. Imagine new city territories means ask which means to attribute to single elements in order to rethink all.

Tarlabasi of Istanbul has a multi-dimensional socio-cultural structure by the effect of economic and cultural transformations. The local characteristics of the superstructure and the historical pattern of the region are mostly protected, although gentrification could have some effects erasing the traces of the past. Tarlabasi is a distinct urban environment as its urban and architectural characteristics is a unique product of European and Greek minority architects of the late Ottoman era. It reflects the West-East dialogue within Istanbul. In this study, the sustainable environmental quality in Tarlabasi will be discussed as well as the transformation in Tarlabasi with the affects of new “Law of Urban Transformation”. When we start to examine the sustainability, it is important to predict the future of Tarlabasi, where new “Law of Urban Transformation” is the key for a prediction at this point. Today, Tarlabasi has sustainable dynamics such as cultural realms, social heterogeneity, and historical background but, new “Law of Urban Transformation”, which is emerged in a non-participatory process and with a decision top to toe, makes the situation of Tarlabasi critical. The new law and new tendering process for the area will generate a different environment and new tendering will cause new developments to fade existing socio-cultural core elements, which might be critical for the sustainability of the environment. When we examine Tarlabasi, we can determine the five social dynamics such as poverty, migration, assimilation and adaptation with the city, marginality and crime. For the creation of sustainable environmental quality, these parameters should be discussed within Tarlabasi, but the main point is new “Law of Urban Transformation” and its prediction for the future in this area in accordance with the topic of the conference “urban diversities, landscapes and sustainable quality of life”. The participatory level of the new law should be discussed and its consequences should also be interpreted with implementations. The area has to pass beyond just an “image work” and have to be rehabilitated together with the dynamics of the social structure living here for the sustainable quality of life. This study examines the affects of the new “Law of Urban Transformation” on five social dynamics and the prediction of the future in this context in accordance with the sustainable quality of life.

In order to manage for well-being in life environments, We need to pay enough attention to human in different ages, especially children for their Physically and mentally development. One of their ability which is too much affected by environment is creativity and sense of curious. In this research, it has been studied the influence of environmental condition in children's creativity. The exclusive aim of the research has been to focus on children's everyday environment and to try and enhance its qualities. In this regard, One day's life of children has been studied temporally and spatially. In this way, in different place and period of time, the idea of children were collected with observation, conversation and interviewing, drawing and sculpturing & …. The result is a rich material on how children interact with space and it reveals a diverse picture of how they understand and perceive their everyday environment.

Open and closed urban structures: a possible interpretation and fusion of historical models in the light of contemporary urban design The contraposition between historic city and rationalist city, between hof and siedlung has been often interpreted as the clash between two irreconcilable models. The dualism between block and line models has been object of a synthesis merging old and new, city center and periphery. Each of these spatial models is endowed with both strong and weak points. The years between 1920 and 1970 have seen the predominance of rationalist models, encompassing both the architectural and social-economical sphere. The crisis begun with 1956 CIAM, and the scarcity of proposals which have derived from this event, have led architectural research back towards historical settlements where the block is considered the basis for design. These researches have shaped experiences such as 1984 Berlin IBA. Although these experiments have been carried out in Germany, they nevertheless involved architectural culture as a whole in a debated on urban models, which is now losing strength. The complexity of contemporary cities and of its growth and development processes, and the crisis of the very urban model have carried out the function of a deterrent for urban design research, and have led to the fragmentation of experiences.

Contrary to natural environments used for leisure, where restorative quality is almost a given, urban environments have to be carefully designed to be able to allow restorative experiences. This applies to both the large scale environment as well as the micro-level of interior design. This presentation will focus on one type of urban environment: the café. Café’s are by their very nature leisure environments. Does that also mean that they are restorative, that is, capable of restoring previously depleted attentional capacity or aiding recovery from stress? And which are the conditions needed to create such effects? I will look at the physical and social conditions that may affect likelihood of restoration, preference for a café and ultimately seating choice in a café. I will try to explain these effects by looking closely at affective processes and by normative expectations and demands, evoked by specific physical and social conditions, that existed in the café as presented

Opportunities for urban biodiversity in dynamic cities In a worldwide perspective cities are confronted with drastic changes of its demographic development. This can be simply summarised under the terms „shrinking cities“ and „growing cities“. Both developments offer different opportunities to provide „adequate biodiversity“ e.g. as „recreational area and green spaces for the citizens“, as genetic resource or as conservation area for biodiversity. In this context the urban and peri-urban landscape ecological matrix has to be taken into account. Despite the fact that urban green spaces in inner cities are characterized by many „exotic species“ their recreational potential is not necessarily decreasing. But more „natural like“ green spaces in the outskirts of the cities have different recreational and biodiversity qualities, including more indigenous species and other recreational qualities. This indicates an urban to rural gradient concerning different kinds of biodiversity, its evaluation and perception. While shrinking cities offer the opportunity to provide adequate green space quantity for too densely built-up urban areas and for experiments with new design and species selection strategies the growing cities need the protection of indigenous biodiversity. The following two questions will be addressed in the proposed symposium: Which opportunities for „adequate biodiversity“ should be chosen in dynamic (growing or shrinking) cities? What are the citizen’s perceptions and expectations of the present urban and peri-urban biodiversity changes?

Tramways and metros are undertaken as growth and development projects in many cities, but they are not always built where they make good practical sense, especially in the Anglo-American world. This paper discusses the potential for community-based urban design strategies as proactive responses to the recurrent problem of misplaced infrastructure. It reports on a Montréal project examining this question: How can we make more of the unrealised potential in existing infrastructure and how can we engage local communities in urban regeneration projects to 'make the most' of public-transport infrastructure? One solution is to strive for better choice of location and a more robust decision-making process, but this is not always possible. The political realities of major public expenditures can result in projects undertaken despite the advice of transportation planners, system designers, and management agencies. A second solution is to develop followthrough strategies going beyond the project cycle (planning and implementation) to focus instead on the lifecycle of the infrastructure itself. A third solution takes a 'whole-corridor' approach to address urban form, activity, and regulatory instruments in the areas flanking the public-transport axis. This entails an integrative urban design approach combining conventional planning instruments with strategic private-public initiatives to improve key sites in the city. Addressing the conference theme of ‘Architecture, urban design, and management for wellbeing in life environments’ through approaches that identify user perceptions of urban space, this paper examines a simple but vital question: How can we ensure that public-transport infrastructure really fit into its context? It asserts that not enough work has been done on the collaborative process that is at the heart of contemporary urban design for major transportation infrastructure projects. A ‘whole-corridor’ approach also means considering possibilities of completely reworking the built environment for the purposes of urban regeneration: rebuilding, adaptively reusing, and seeking to recapitalise on existing built-up areas. To do so, urban design techniques are of the utmost importance. Among the lessons that stand to be learned from this project are various ways in which to manipulate the 'upstream' decision-making process to ensure the success of future projects.

Istanbul exhibits all major characteristics of a metropolitan area and urbanization is increasingly appearent. In construction projects of new housing areas, walled residential quarters with restricted access increased remarkably to overcome the social and physical dangers of the densely populated areas. This study explored the concerns of 97 parents for their children’s outdoor use in a residential quarter separated physically and secured from the outside neigbourhood. In this qualitative study, face-to-face interviews with the parents having elementary school children were interviewed. Parents were asked to describe their children’s play attitude to use the residential quarter. Open-ended questions were designed to explore their permission rules and concerns. Key demographic questions were also asked at the end of the interview, including parents’ level of education, gender of children and income level. Parents reported on four themes to assess the range of influences on safety and environmental factors, level of independence, play facilities and social aspects. By asking the safety and environmental factors, children’s access to quarter facilities, internal transportation, pedestrian activity and security installations were questioned. Interview questions revealed the conditions and the level of independence to go places in the residential quarter. The content of the play facilities indicated the suitability of the facilities to the children in gender and age differences and its relation to the size of the courter. Finally the social aspects were questioned to evaluate the impact of friends and neighbour relations on play activity of the children. The transcripts of the interview indicated that safety of the residental court is threatened by the possible emergent vehicle access into the courtyard. Majority of parents agreed that the court can be accessible by the visitors though it’s gated. These factors influence the permission boundaries to play and invoke the parental supervision. Hence the level of independence is limited to the number of places close to the residential unit. Compared with parents of younger children (6-8 years), parents of older children (9 years and above) more often reported that they allowed their child greater independence. The findings of the present study regarding parental concerns raise the questions on the security of gated communities and their impact on play activity of children.

Public parks play many roles in the society of today. They represent values of aesthetical, ecological, educational, cultural, social, recreational and health promoting aspects. Urban biodiversity (cultivated and wild) in the terms of a rich and varied environment with opportunities for plants, animals and people to exist and share the space must be respected. This is expressed among other things in The Convention on Biological Diversity, which was ratified by Swedish parliament in 1993. Authorities responsible for Forestry and Agriculture as well as countryside for recreation aim at preserving and sustainably usage of biodiversity. Corresponding issues within the cities are being controlled by The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning. Knowledge about and actions on behalf of urban biodiversity have reached out to a smaller extent in municipalities daily work with management of parks. This shows in contacts with some park administrators. The aim of this project is to discover how knowledge about biodiversity in urban parks is communicated in some selected Swedish municipalities’ organizations for park management. Questions investigated in the study: • How is the concept and phenomena of urban biodiversity perceived by professionals working with park management? • What does the organisational structure look like and how does this influence communication at a face to face level within the organisation? • How are biodiversity issues handled in park management today and in planning for future park management? Three case studies and one dialogue seminar are the main methods being used in my PhD. The case studies are three municipalities of varying size, levels of urbanisation and different organization of their administration of park management. Through participant observation and individual interviews I examine the contemporary discourse in park management concerning biodiversity issues. The study is related to theories on communication and on organizational and collaborative learning. Keywords discussed are: cultures of knowledge, processes of learning, communication, biodiversity in urban green space and park management among others. One of the most challenging things about the project is to try to combine different fields of theories that already are broad in themselves. Communication is such a field which I would really like to discuss with other senior researchers with experience in the field.

"Life quality in urban spaces has been defined in many ways. Certainly, one of the factors used to measure the urban space ospitality is its ability to accomodate different requests by any kind of user. We can say that the more an urban space is accessibile the more it garantees an high quality of life. Therefore, it is necessary to face the complexity of urban spaces, in order to better comprehend all the signs, meanings, functions and developments of every town. In this way, it will be possible to make concrete the right to the city, to the authonomy and to indipendent life, regardless of temporary or permanent conditions of every single person. From the experiences of Arezzo, Pisa and Viareggio local administrations, and Florence and Prato, it has been created a method to draw up plans for the elimination of architectural barriers (called P.E.B.A.). These experiences, described in the following part, have been made by groups of technicians, both inside and outside the administrations, and by validators and detectors coming from involved associations. These groups have formed the pool management of privileged stakeholders. The main purpose is to achive the knowledge that is needed to execute concrete projects, able to mitigate the conflict between man and environment. In this way we can define the planning of all the actions, in accordance with existing regulations and “good practices”, always compared to groups of “real people”. The production process is made with a tree scheme, with 4 main parts. The first part concerns the preliminary steps that are necessary to draw up the plan. The second part concerns environmental relief with analisys of accessibility and usability. In the third part, we value all the structures and routes detected and we proceed with drafting the accessibility map. In the fourth and last part of P.E.B.A. processing, we realize the supports needed by local administrations, in order to plan all the works that must be carried out. Plans for removal architectural barriers are meta-planning instruments, necessary to start coordinated procedures of “urban design”, in order to realize all the interventions that can minimise conflicts between ""man and environment"". Bibl: “Persone reali e progettazione dell’ambiente costruito, l’accessibilità come risorsa per la qualità ambientale” – by Antonio Laurìa. Ed. Maggioli Editori “Inclusive Urban design, streets for life” – by E. Burton e L. Mitchell. Ed. Architectural Press, Ma. USA"

The previous Swedish housing and urban planning model was successful in providing high standard housing for all, even though it was a modernist top-down social engineering solution, not based on direct participation of citizens. In the 1970s, demands for participation became prominent and as a result the planning and building law was changed to provide for a stronger influence of citizens in town planning procedures. The experience from Stockholm shows that it is often difficult for laymen to understand alternative possibilities if only one proposal is presented, and that public pressure can influence political decisions if citizens are active and well informed. There are a number of ways to strengthen public participation and these will be discussed. There are also ideas about a reversed planning process, where people in an urban district are asked to specify guidelines for improving their area, before the task goes to the town planning administration and relevant developers.

This paper explores the role of privatization and informationalism in the evolution of New York City's Union Square Park and its effects on citizen power. Tracing the park's governance, from the 1930s to it's current public/private management by the Union Square Partnership (USP), and the increasing presence of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in public space, a general decline in displays of citizen power at Union Square Park can be found alongside an increase in surveillance and censorship. The result is a “passing-through-park” that efficiently manages the rhythm of capital, cultural, and communicative flows. This paper argues that the spatial-temporality of this “passing-through-park” works against individual autonomy and citizen power. This paper concludes by examining attempts by artists, activists and everyday park-goers to agitate the park's mechanized flow and thus attain citizen power through arrhythmia. Utilizing the communicative affordances of ICTs, these actors are developing new methods for attaining citizen power in Union Square Park. This paper is based on an ethnography of Union Square Park that began in February of 2006. Behavior maps, movement maps, Wi-Fi Maps, video, observational notes and interviews with park goers have been gathered and analyzed. Henri Lefebvre’s (2004) concept of rhythmanalysis is utilized to understand the mutual shaping which occurs between the park’s spatial-temporality and the everyday life of park-goers. Literature regarding Union Square Park and the privatization of public space has also been reviewed in an attempt to contextualize this ethnography within a socio-historical framework. USP promotional materials, its board members and their affiliated organizations, and a presentation given by the USP’s Director of Public Affairs have been reviewed to gain insight into the park’s governance.

This study is concerned with appropriation of space and the social processes that explain the attachment between people and places (Vidal, Pol, Guàrdia and Peró, 2004). In this paper we show some results of a study focused on the relation between “place attachment” and “place identity”. Several scholars have pointed out, in different ways, the links between both issues. We agree with Hidalgo, Hernández, Salazar and Hess (2007) in considering that place attachment is an affective bond, and place identity is a component of personal identity. Mainly, we want to know in which ways residential mobility has an effect upon both processes. Considering that people live in several cities across their lives, and people ”live” in several places at the same time. The main objective of this research is to know to what extent the patterns of residential mobility of people affect place attachment and place identity. At same time, we want to know how people attach to places compared to place identity processes. With regard to place, is attachment developed in the same way that identity does? Are place attachment and identity two aspects from a more general issue? In order to explore and specify these relationships we applied a questionnaire with scales on identity and attachment to a sample of graduate students in Barcelona. To explore these relationships we attended to three spatial levels: neighbourhood, city and region. We analysed that to some extent place attachment and place identity have different values in each kind of space, related to the time of residence and residential mobility of the people surveyed. The main results of the study contribute to the knowledge on the social construction of identity and place attachment. We conclude considering the way in which residential mobility is related to the meanings of place and place attachment. This issue is similar to what Gustafson (2001) called the relationship between place attachment and mobility by means of “roots” and “routes”, as well as it relates to the ways of appropriation explained by Moles and Rohmer (1964).

Arguing for a fresh look at theory- lecture based courses in architecture and how 'people-environments' paradigm is introduced in lecture based courses in architecture, this paper outlines the implementation of a number of 'in-class and out of-class' tools utilized as exercises that foster active learning in classroom settings. The exercises involve individual work and class discussion. They range from 10 minutes to the whole class session and address issues that examine and translate students understanding of the topics introduced, including relating culture to architecture, recognizing building types, developing responses to different environmental settings, and understanding building images. The results of conducting these exercises corroborate that 'people-environments' paradigm can be introduced through active learning which invigorated students understanding of the topics, sensitized them into the understanding of course objectives, while creating excitement in the classroom.

Personal safety is on of the main problems threatening our everyday life as being a constitutive precondition of mobility. Therefore, impacts on perceived danger should be already considered at the beginning of design and planning. Two controlled experiments were conducted to analyze the relevance of specific physical features and the presence of others. Navigatable 360° panorama photos were used to realize a systematic variation of lighting, entrapment, concealment as well as the presence of no, one or three other male persons. Different underground stops and places of a Campus University were presented to two independent samples (each N= 240). The perceived danger and personal factors were measured by a standardized questionnaire. The three physical factors and the presence of others showed up as relevant determinants of perceived danger. However, the relative impacts of these factors seem to differ between the settings. Methods and results are discussed with respect to future applied research.

This contribution presents the first results of an extensive research programme conducted in the Sondrio province and aimed at understanding the reasons behind the heavy consumption of alcohol and drugs in the area. The research was promoted by the local health authority (ASL) of the Sondrio province and sponsored by the Lombardia Region. Starting from a socio-psychological perspective, the research group planned and conducted over 40 focus groups of teenagers and young adults (some of which had been reported to the authorities for alcohol and/or drugs consumption), parents, local social workers, local politicians and some representatives of the security forces. One of the most significant finding is the importance of the physical environment (in particular the sense of physical “restriction” that results in the restriction of cognitive horizons): the lack of opportunities other than winter sports and hiking mirrors the discomfort of the community, which is often expressed in the diffusion of responsibility, the difficulty in making helping behaviours more spontaneous and frequent and the limited use of social capital as a form of implicit cooperation and as a meeting point for the resources available within said community.

The personalization of the home as an expression of identity has been a recurring theme in the literature, mainly focusing on the home as an expression of the self. Generally speaking, an effort has been made to study how the decoration and personalization of home spaces allow one to identify the resident's personal traits. This piece of research attempts to find out to what extent a consensus perception concerning the resident of an unshared bedroom is produced when his/her bedroom is observed. It also aims to measure to what extent the endogroup and the exogroup differ when attributing traits. In order to do so, more than a hundred university students and another hundred people over the age of 65 were shown a series of slides showing bedrooms occupied by a one person. Six of these belonged to young people (aged between 18 and 25) and another six belonged to people over the age of 65. All the occupants lived with their families, either with their parents or with their children, respectively. Both samples –young and old people– had to respond to a questionnaire consisting of 12 lists (one per bedroom) containing adjectives referring to personality traits and socio-demographic characteristics. The analysis of the data allowed us to establish which traits of both Fiske’s theory and of the Big-Five are attributed to each one of the groups and observe to what extent belonging or not belonging to a group affects the attribution of traits.

The understanding of access and quality of urban services provides an engaging perspective on environmental problems and attendant health consequences at both neighbourhood and household levels in third world cities. Perhaps the most striking difference between houses and neighbourhoods in deprived and non-deprived areas in a pre-colonial African city is the availability of-and access to environmental services. This paper examines the perception of households on the availability of and accessibility to selected environmental services and the consequences of this on household health. The aim is simultaneously identifying neighbourhood perception and the impact of environmental and household services on human health. A sample of 480 households were drawn from the indigenous and Frontier Native area wards of Ilorin metropolis and a structured questionnaire was administered for a survey of residential quality and environmental services available to the households. The questionnaires were drawn to reveal, among others, the socioeconomic characteristics of households, dwelling conditions and environmental problems relating to water, solid waste and sanitation. Households were sampled using systematic random method in the twelve wards that make up the inner city and frontier native areas (Raheem’s Classification in ongoing PhD thesis) in the metropolis. The data obtained were analyzed using simple parametric and non-parametric statistics including contingency tables and chi-squares. In all cases, p-Values less than 0.05 were used as the confidence level. The result shows that dwelling conditions were poor with disproportionally low scores in residential quality. Residents also perceived living and neighbourhood conditions as poor but a significant proportion also perceived the situation as ‘helpless’. Diarrheal occurrence in children and symptoms of respiratory track infections were common in households where piped water connections, sewers and garbage collections were inadequate. A number of strategies were identified in the survey as coping mechanisms. The study concludes that an understanding of neighbourhood conditions is crucial for local level environmental improvements by guiding towards a well informed priority-setting. While noting the strategic role of household environmental improvements for that attainment of the MDGs, the paper recommend a deliberate planning policy for the innercity and native areas of pre-colonial African cities.

UK policy calls on urban green spaces (UGS) to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Little is known as to whether biodiversity is important to people’s experience of UGS and the extent to which the lay perceptions of ‘naturalness’ match independently measured ecological qualities. Joint fieldwork by psychologists and ecologists was conducted in 15 public UGS in Sheffield, UK. In situ interviews explored perceptions of biodiversity; sampling surveys assessed ecological diversity (e.g. plant/animal communities, physical configurations). Content analysis identified landscape cues signalling whether a space is perceived as natural or non-natural. These included the presence or absence, type and age of vegetation, the size and location of the UGS and the presence or absence of human intervention. In comparison with objective ecological measures of biological diversity there are marked differences. Findings provide practical insights into public perceptions of biodiversity.

Urban parks can have significant positive impacts on surrounding neighborhoods, both by promoting physical and mental health and also by enhancing a sense of community. Yet their advantages are not always acknowledged. The present paper will present ratings of national parks and urban parks for both attractiveness and “naturalness”. We will also present reactions to a specific urban park, before and after it was substantially improved. Survey data from local residents examine the way in which the park is used as well as its perceived value to the neighborhood and overall neighborhood satisfaction. Behavioral observations of park use provide more detailed information about the way in which residents use the park and the impact of park improvement. Implications for the values of urban green spaces will be discussed.

This investigation refers to the influence of commercial signs (shop fronts and windows displays) in the appearance of commercial and historical streetscapes taking into account the perception and evaluation of users from different countries. This study seeks to answer the following research question: “Are there common perceptions and evaluations between users from different countries in terms of the appearance of commercial street facades in historic city centres?”. The objective is to identify those physical characteristics of commercial signs and buildings that should be taken into account in the development of a general commercial signage approach applicable in different urban contexts. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis was applied to answer the research question. The following historic cities were selected as case studies: Oxford, in England, and Gramado and Pelotas in Brazil. Questionnaires and a focus group discussion were selected to gather the data, and nonparametric statistic tests and a content analysis were carried out to analyse the information. Data from questionnaires was analysed descriptively through frequencies of user responses and six nonparametric tests (Chi-square goodness-of-fit test; Chi-square test for r x 2, r x k tables; Fisher exact test; Mann-Whitney test; Kruskal- Wallis one-way analysis of variance; and Spearman correlation). Data analysis of the focus group discussion was based on notes made by the researcher and by participants during the debate, and on a document produced at the end of the discussion. The results identified physical characteristics of commercial signs and buildings that should be taken into account in the development of a general commercial signage approach applicable in different countries. The outcomes also provided evidences for further theoretical discussions in the Environment Behavioural research field. The findings demonstrated that some visual preferences related to commercial and historical streetscapes were based on the process of user perception (perceptual constancy) more than on the process of user cognition. In addition, the choice of developing the empirical investigation in different countries allowed for a better understanding of the application of techniques to get people involved in surveys. Depending on the urban and cultural context in which potential users live, some techniques will be more successful than others.

Spaces are at the core of processes such as place identity. Examining cognitions, attitudes, values, and so on, has made possible to verify some characteristics that underlie the close relationship between a person and his/her environment. Our main purpose is to illustrate how performance spaces can contribute to the self development through theatre exercises, and how this self development follow complex —non-linear, fractal, fuzzy— patterns. Following this, we present the main results of an empirical research with university students, who attended an eight-session theatre workshop. Results show how theater exercises make possible to observe some complex phenomena in self development. Results are discussed from the standpoint of the symbolic space appropriation; this analysis pretends not only to offer a theoretical tool but also to give some practical guidelines addressed to enhance a self development environmentally situated.

Physical play behaviour in the construction of environmental assessment tools for children’s outdoor settings: The example of Outdoor Play Environment Categories and Sky View Factor Fredrika Mårtensson Department of Work science, Business economics and Environmental psychology, Swedish Swedish Agricultural University, Alnarp, Sweden P.O. Box 88 SE-230 53 Alnarp Cecilia Boldemann Centre for Public Health and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden The Outdoor Play Environment Categories (OPEC) and the sky view factor (SVF) are tools for environmental assessment of children’s outdoor play areas. The instruments indicate what outdoor areas enable high levels of physical activity without the risk of children getting sunburnt. The aim of the paper is to make a qualitative investigation of how the environmental parameters defined by the tools are related to physical activity and to sun-protective behaviour among children in a playsetting. From video recordings of outdoor play in two Swedish preschools a sample of play sequences characterised by high agility and mobility were meta-analysed in relation to the environmental parameters included in the OPEC- instrument. The fraction (%) of visible free sky (SVF) determined by fish eye photography of the sky from all salient play settings is investigated in relation to the OPEC-instrument. The material illustrate how the environmental parameters of the OPEC- and the SVF- instrument become part of children’s play behaviour by affording them a setting where they can use swift, non-verbal play signals typical for outdoor settings as moving the body, making sounds, manipulating objects and attending to animals and weather phenomena. In health promoting planning the environmental categories of the OPEC- instrument consists of parameters that are vital when evaluating and developing outdoor play areas and the SVF measure a handy tool for targeted land use. The possibility to generalise from a cultural context where children are encouraged to gross motor activity in close proximity to the surrounding natural environment is discussed. Key words: Environmental assessment tools, Physical activity, Children’s play

This study targets the relationship between regional belongingness and place attachment. It aims to compare different insular and not-insular regional realities, belonging to the European Union. The work starts from the hypothesis that the insular nature of the belonging region can influence the development of an emotional bound among people and their living environments. According to Moles (1985), geographical characteristics of the islands could be able to influence the perception and the identity of the inhabitants. He proposed a taxonomy of islands depending on their degree of isolitè (islandness), a peculiar quality of islands influenced by distance (from the other countries) and dimension. More the island is characterised by a narrow dimension and an high distance, more will be salient for the inhabitants the feeling of being islanders (sense of insularity). Some contributions, in literature, showed differences in the relationship place-inhabitants, among islanders and not. They pointed out, in some case, specificities in the place attachment of islanders. Three islands were individuated, according their dimension and distance from the continental country: Sicily, Sardinia, and Majorca. They were compared to three continental regions, chosen because of their physical and identitarian features: Tuscany, Lombardy, and Catalonia. N=144 participants were involved, equally divided between islanders and not-islanders. They were contacted in their belonging region. Each sub-group was balanced for the gender variable, and equally divided in 4 groups according to the age. Materials included a semi-structured interview, in Italian and Spanish, about the place attachment and the perception of limits and distance. The interviews were recorded and written down, then a text analysis allowed to categorise the answers and to analyse them. Islanders significantly differ regarding, both the indicated places of attachment and the perception of distance and limits. In the face of not-insular people, they indicated more the whole region as a place they are attached to. Furthermore, when indicating specific places, islanders: - choose very seldom their cities of birth or living, and particular places like streets, neighbourhoods, squares; - choose almost always places collocated in the totality of their own island, and even not citing their birthliving place.

This prospective study has been carried out to detect dimensions related to place attachment which might become predictor variables in the choice of a permanent place for the disposal of one’s remains. For this, two incidental samples of participants were used. One of them was composed of 53 people in Paris, and the other of 60 people in Madrid. The principal socio-demographic features were as follows: in both samples two variables in particular were considered when organising the results: on the one hand, gender, and, on the other, age. There were two groups: one of 30 to 64 years, and another of over 64 years. The procedure used to collect data was a questionnaire distributed to people complying with the requisites of residence, age and gender. The analyses have allowed us to distinguish four dimensions related to place attachment through the analysis contained in the open answers in the questionnaires. Firstly, one which could be called “Physical attachment”, whose main reference are the physical qualities of the surroundings; a second dimension, labelled “Social attachment”, which links the choice with family relatives or friends; a third, where both dimensions are combined: “Physical and social attachment”. Finally, there is a choice related to “Place of Residence”. In this case, the reason for this choice would seem to respond to a functional aspect with relatives. The results are presented bearing in mind the differences between the French and Spanish samples, the age group and the gender, as well as burial options.

Identification with a group and attachment to a territory have a deep influence on what people think and feel and on how they act in their socio-environmental context. In particular, recent evidence underlines that two factors may moderate the relation between social identity, territory integration and subjective wellbeing: 1) the specific membership group; and 2) the environment (place attachment and perception of environmental decay). The present study intends to examine these aspects in two different settings: a mountain area and a metropolitan area. This study was carried out in the Valle d’Aosta district, a setting where a strong regional identity is present; also, the area is perceived as most secure by its population although its crime rate is not one of the lowest in Italy. In this setting, we aimed at examining the relation between social identity and place attachment. In particular, we expected strong membership of one’s own social group to produce greater territory integration and subjective wellbeing. Further, concern with crime was hypothesized to be negatively associated to high social identity, especially when the latter was mediated by perception of stability of one’s own social condition, whereas fear of crime was hypothesized to be associated not only to demographic factors like age and gender, but also to perception of social and environmental decay of the neighbourhood. The study was conducted via questionnaires distributed to two samples of respondents, recruited according to their residence: one in the regional setting (Valle d’Aosta) and the other in a metropolitan reality with high perception of insecurity and high perceived decay (Milan); the aim was comparing two very different territories. The main variables measured by the questionnaire were: sense of insecurity, fear of crime, victimisation, perception of social and environmental incivility, place attachment, social stabilitys, social identity, perceived social , subjective wellbeing. Main data analyses - still under way - regard both the comparison between the two settings and the mediating role of place attachment in the relation between social identity and indicators of integration and wellbeing such as sense of insecurity, perceived social support, psychological wellbeing.

Environmental experience is not only a part of everyday experience, but it is one of its core parts, as long as the environment surrounds and takes part in the whole existence of human beings. Even if the attention is not focused on the place, it is experienced and a certain meaning is given to it. Environmental settings or “places” have also great links with emotions and feelings, which become important elements not only of the present experience but of the memories, and can have consequences in peoples’ behaviour. These emotional experiences have influence in the development of personal identity as well as in psychological and physical well-being. Between all the possible range of experiences, relocations seem to play a very important role on satisfaction with the left place and the new one. The way these residential place changes are lived seem to be influenced by the age they took place, the perceived control on them and the social context, as well as by the characteristics of the place itself. This work intends to go deeper in how childhood and young-adult place experiences (especially removals) influence on peoples’ identity and well-being (present and past). In order to assess this, an interview instrument was designed (adapted from Manzo). The subjects interviewed were students from an adult program at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, all of them aged more than fifty-five. The preliminary results suggest that, when remembered, these relocation experiences are perceived as meaningful and important for the present place perception and self and social identity development. The landscapes remembered (most of them urban settings and/or green areas) seem to have been invested with all these subjective and social aspects, having influence on adults’ behaviour and preferences. The results also indicate the high complexity of the connections established with different places and the need of further research on the area, specially oriented to relocated population, immigrants and people who have to move from their meaning environments, in general.

In this paper, the relation between national or european identification and acceptance of natural protected areas (NPA) was investigated. We examined how the level of identity salience, the type of proposing authority and the modality of park’s management interact in shaping support for NPA. To test this hypothesis, 4 scenarios describing the institution of a natural park proposed either by a national or by an european authority were set up. In particular: -Scenario 1 described the institution of a park proposed by a national authority with the presence of conflicts between the local communities and the public authorities responsible for the park institution. -Scenario 2 described the institution of a park proposed by a national authority without the presence of conflicts between the local communities and the public authorities responsible for the park institution. -Scenario 3 described the institution of a park proposed by an european authority without the presence of conflicts between the local communities and the public authorities responsible for the park institution. -Scenario 4 described the institution of a park proposed by an european authority with the presence of conflicts between the local communities and the public authorities responsible for the park institution. N = 93 residents in Rome (Italy) participated in the study, purposively balanced for the main socio-demographic characteristics and randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions of identity salience: 1) national identity salient; 2) european identity salient; Identity salience was manipulated via a “self-definition task” previously used in the literature. Each participant was then asked to evaluate 2 out of 4 scenarios, according to a nested factorial design, by responding to 7 Likert-type items (Cronbach’s alphas over .85). The main prediction of this study involves a 3-way interaction between “level of identity salience” (national vs. european), “park’s proponent authority” (national vs. european) and “park management modality” (with vs. without conflicts). Preliminary results confirmed the expected main effect of management modality upon park’s acceptance. Scenarios describing the presence of conflicts between the proponent authority and local communities received higher degrees of support. The test of the 3-way interaction is still in progress. Theoretical and practical implications will be discussed.

A set of studies carried out in various Italian cities during the last 4 years explored the relationship existing between place attachment, place identity and intentions to endorse some pro-environmental behaviours, such as the choice of public transportation, recycling behaviour and littering. This relationship emerged as of complex nature. Only in few cases a direct and linear relationship appears to link intentions to endorse proenvironmental behaviours and the degree to which people identify or feel attached to their own home city. In most cases a greater role is played by what we have called as the local social norms, which reflect the perception of what the other people living in the same community think about the considered behaviour (prescriptive norms) and the perception of their actual behaviours (descriptive norms). Differences in this relationship emerged also according to the kind of social norms considered. Descriptive rather than prescriptive norms seems to exert a greater direct effect on behavioural intentions and/or to moderate place attachment/identity relationship with pro-environmental behavioural intentions.

This paper presents, analyses and critiques the qualitative research method of “place mapping”, used to gain insights into teenagers’ experience, use and perception of open public spaces. The paper is based on research developed as part of an international collaboration between researchers at three universities in Scotland (Edinburgh College of Art) and the United States (University of California, Davis and Cornell University, New York State) and focusing on teenagers in public places. The overall aim of this cross-continental study is to identify the ways in which teenagers (12 to 17 year-olds) perceive the built and physical environment in relation to their real use of different places and explore the symbolic significance this use has for them in a cross-cultural context of geographically disparate communities. Within this context, place-mapping methodology was employed in two of the three locations of the above study, in Scotland and California, USA, to investigate how teenagers engage with public space in the urban environment across various types of communities. Place mapping allowed young people to inscribe on conventional street maps their spatial experiences, creating a web of inter-linked paths and routes, spaces of inclusion and exclusion, hang-out spots and contested spaces. The maps produced through this method portray how teenagers engage with a range of everyday places beyond their home, school and neighbourhood. This paper thus, illustrates the use of place mapping, as a technique to locate places that play a significant role for youth, both positively and negatively, and to provide a common point for discussion among a group of teenagers. The method offers the researcher a map of young people’s spatial experiences with regard to the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion from public space. In addition, this paper aims to show how researchers can use place mapping in focus group discussions to foster more active engagement by participants. The mapping exercise can encourage students to engage in a more creative way, and feel in control of the interview process. This paper discusses both the advantages and limitations of the method in practice.

"This study has its background in discussions about housing qualities in new urban areas in Norway. Many new areas are lacking diversity in apartment types and communal provisions – such as places to meet or play. They are suitable only to a limited number of users. According to a recent study the residents’ perspective is represented by what estate agents know about the various customer groups. This knowledge, however, may not be well suited to promote long-term qualities. Dwellings designed for busy young men,may be occupied later by other types of households. A current challenge is to meet the potential requirements of cross-section of the population at least at a neighbourhood level. Creating new urban areas with high density is seen as an important overall strategy to support a more sustainable lifestyle. Sustainability also includes social aspects, health and feeling of well being. It is a challenge to build dense and at the same time high quality seen from different user perspectives. Children represent one of the user groups not taken into account. The book Growing Up in an Urbanising World (Chawla 2002) sums up the findings of a major international research initiative about children in cities. The authors conclude that the primary challenge now lies in translating knowledge about this user perspective into actual solutions. Analyzing high quality built solutions is one strategy to try to identify some of the success criteria’s used as premises for planning. Usability of new urban areas. The project focuses on investigating the relations between the physical environments and the lived lives. Trying to translate this knowledge threw design guidelines. The relevance of the research is to figure out what kinds of qualities are preferred. Do the parent’s choices merge those qualities pointed out in new research as important for children? In order to study the usability of residential areas for both the children and their parent’s one has to look more closely at various dimensions connected to different qualities in an urban childhood. This has both to do with functional aspects as well as social aspects, for instance possibilities to meet people and feel safe. “Everyday life” is not only based on routines and habits. It also consists of moments of well being, possibilities for play, learning and feelings of place identity. The research aims: 1. Learn about parents and childrens use and Paper in Young Researchers’ Workshop experience of apparently innovative urban housing projects 2. Produce knowledge available for local planners and politicians about which qualities preferred by “modern” families with children. 3. Contribute to knowledge about how different user perspectives can be made visible and taken into account when discussing housing qualities 4. Contribute to knowledge about how location and neighborhood layout influence on choices taken in everyday life. Research questions: 1. How do children and their parents perceive and use housing enviroments, regarding aspects of location, building and outdoor design 2. Which qualities in the physical environments are important for them? 4. In which way do the location and design of indoor and outdoor areas influence on they everyday life and habits. 5. Do the qualities expressed through the proposed design guidelines support those preferred by the parents and the children? Project design: The first part of the study will survey the available literature in order to map current knowledge of the field. Focus on qualities seen as important for a good childhood related to Nordic conditions. This will result in a proposed translation into some kind of guidelines and will be discussed in an inter-disciplinary expert workshop at a national level. - The physical structure in three cases will be analysed based on this guidelines/ toolbox. The second part will focus on understanding and studying the relationship between everyday life and the place of residence case studies (Yin 1994) of three new built-up urban residential areas. - Investigating both parents experience and use of the physical environment (threw interview and questioners) and childrens experience and use of the physical environment. (Using photos and their own stories). An important selection criterion will be that the chosen areas have been designed with a particular ambition of adapting high quality residential environment. The selection will offer opportunities to identify success criteria that may be important and offer useful knowledge to others. Donmoyer (1990) recommends that this type of case study could be used in order to teach readers to see possibilities. Gergen (1992) describes the constructi Chawla, L. (2002). Growing Up in an Urbanising World, UNESCO. Dep. (2005). Handlingsplanen for fysisk aktivitet. Duncan, J. (2005). ""Do we have a theory yet."" Iaps Bulletin of People- Envroment Horelli, L. and M. Prezza (2004). Child-Friendly Environments - Approaches and lessons. Helsinki,"

Hospital architecture is a complex theme, and attending all the requirements necessary for designing these institutions represents a great challenge to all the responsible professionals in its planning. Regarding this, understanding the needs of these environment users should be one of the most important guidelines, for it is known that, in an hospital environment, the people are more emotionally affected due to their weakened physical state, increasing the relevance of the architecture to influence them in a positive way. This work consists in a Post-Occupation Evaluation approach to Environmental Psychology. The case study was conducted in 1st Surgical Internment Clinic of the University of Santa Catarina’s Federal Hospital. This article means to discuss the use of different employed methods as tools for practical results in architecture. In order to undertake this research, a bibliographical revision and elaboration of methods to evaluate user perceptions and behaviours was conducted: structured interviews and spreadsheet for systematic observation of the behaviours. Moreover, a technical-functional evaluation was carried out, that beyond evaluating physical characteristics of the space, studied the present Brazilian regulations and norms. Comparisons were made between the collected data from the different methods. The study allowed to find different and/or contradictory spatial needs between users, that aren’t always evident. The technical evaluation pointed reasons for behaviours and perceptions, and insufficiencies of the attendance to the norms that mean to assure quality to the environment. The evaluation presented, not only showed pointers for health environments in general, but also it pointed out which modifications would prove necessary to the studied environment, generating an architectural project for the reformation of this hospital wing. The intention of this work is not to define a design model, since each different context demands a specific solution. One expects, however, that the pointed alternatives may assist in the performance of the professionals who work in the area, and post a contribution for the improvement of the current legislation and expand the debate on the subject.

Cross-cultural data is inherently “nested.” That is, the scores of an individual have more in common with other data points from their own culture, than with scores from data collected in other cultures. This is a fundamental violation of the assumption of independence of observation, required for traditional statistical analyses. Essentially, when data are nested in this way, the individual is not the appropriate unit of analysis. In recent years, a new class of statistical procedures has been introduced that solves this “nesting” problem. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) provides a broad framework for assessing clustering effects, accounting for this clustering in the statistical analyses, and then modeling both individual- and culture-level relationships. While the approach is being widely used in longitudinal, health, and policy research, it is a relatively new tool for cross-cultural researchers. In this talk, we apply the HLM approach to the environmental optimism dataset reported by Gifford et al. Data are available from 18 countries, with measures of spatial and temporal optimism. We start by replicating the initial findings within an HLM framework, and then present a series of expanded analyses using both individual-level (gender, age, education) and culture-level (GNP, environmental quality, gender equality, individualism). Results support the usefulness of the HLM approach for cross-cultural research, and we highlight the similarities and differences with traditional parametric statistical procedures.

Several studies on the social acceptance of wind energy converters have revealed numerous factors that influence the successful adoption of this technology, such as visual and acoustic factors. However, so far research has focused on the social acceptance in the phase of implementation but neglected the phase of product development. The present research evaluates how small scale vertical wind energy turbines are perceived by potential users and how the turbines’ design influences their acceptance. In a field study 120 potential users were confronted with a computer simulation that presented differently designed wind turbines. The results provide empirical evidence for the design’s impact on the decision to adopt this technology. These analyses are part of a larger interdisciplinary project on the technical, economic, ecological, and social aspects of the small scale vertical wind turbines. This project is supported by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany. The implications of the results are discussed in relation to product design and strategies to promote small scale wind turbines.

This poster aims to present succinctly the differences between two distinctive approaches regarding the promotion of human well being at work: the one of the environmental and ecological psychology and the one of ergonomics or human factors. In fact, this attempt to systematize these two different approaches seems necessary when one considers the difficulties to distinguish them sometimes revealed by the literature on working environments. Differences presented will basically focus on their historical roots, their definition, their objectives, their unity of analysis, their models, their methods and their outputs.

The world and humankind are being confronted with several environmental problems. Energy consumption has been widely referred as having a very important impact on some of these problems, and as one of the most important factors negatively affecting sustainable development.Despite the technological improvements, the resolution of such environmental problems will require changes in the human behaviour and consumption patterns.It is though of great importance to identify and study which are and the role of psycho-social variables in such behavioural patterns.The research presented here examines variables associated to energy consumption behaviour and aims to identify the way how values, attitudes and norms contribute for energy saving behaviour.Some research, studying human values and attitudes indicate that these are important variables associated with behaviour that impacts on environment.Despite some evidences, there is still need for the clarification of the relationship between values, attitudes and behaviour. Also, the distinction between the role of environmental and altruistic values and attitudes is still unclear.Other research refers to social norms as having important implications for environmental behaviour.The present research intends to clarify how social norms influence the association between values, attitudes and behaviour. This is done on an organizational context, studying organizations that value environment and sustainability.According to the objectives of the studies, the methodological approach adopted for the research program combines different methods, such as experiments or correlational studies.The first study already conducted intended to explore the distinction between environmental and altruistic values on the role these values may assume in the prediction of environmental and altruistic attitudes and energy consumption behaviour.The results from the study show the importance of the distinction between environmentalism and altruism in the explanation of pro-environmental behaviour.At present stage we are preparing an extended correlational study to examine the relationships between environmental and altruistic values, environmental and altruistic attitudes, moral norm, past behaviour and energy saving behavioural intention.Also, the application to the organizational context is being prepared, namely with the evaluation of social norms effects.

Do personal benefits from experiences in natural environments, such as psychological restoration, underlie people's concern about the environment and, ultimately, motivate people to act conservationally? Employing self-reports from 468 students, we examined the relationships between use of natural environments for restoration, environmental concern, and conservation behavior. With a set of hierarchical regression analyses, we found the use of nature for restoration to predict environmental concern. Concern, in turn, predicted conservation behavior. Interestingly, we discovered partial mediation of environmental concern when it was measured with the New Environmental Paradigm scale, and full mediation when environmental concern was measured within the Preservation/Utilization paradigm. Psychological restoration in nature appears to motivate people to engage more in environmental conservation.

By now, the actual interactions between installed renewable energy technology with landscapes, people and the latter’s perception, are only heterogeneously and insufficiently documented. The present approach aims to concretise the concept of acceptance with an environmental-psychological foundation. The main focus is on the social dynamics during the implementation process. What are the psychological determinants that make residents reject energy projects and at which stage do residents decide to get involved actively, e.g. form up a local initiative? Therefore, during a three-years-project, citizens from different regions in Germany were queried using qualitative and quantitative methods. The contribution will present the results of the study concerning the social implications of renewable energy systems, in this case wind turbines (on-shore), biomass systems and large-scale PV ground-installed systems.

This presentation will provide a brief report on the status of public participation practice in the USA. Public participation activity associated with urban planning and design projects in the USA is driven by one or more of the following: (i) the need of professional planners or designers to acquire information on user needs or functional project requirements; (ii) public policy and/or legal mandates to obtain citizen or “stakeholder” input; (iii) demands of politically powerful individuals, groups or organizations to “be at the table” influencing key decisions; and (iv) the philosophical or ethical perspectives of project proponents who favor involvement of individuals and groups most affected by plans or projects. Case examples will be used to illustrate these four major drivers as well as to describe a general theory of effective public participation in practice.

This paper describes how children from popular socio-cultural sectors of Cali, Colombia, are using and inhabiting public spaces in the urban space. The analysis of the spontaneous social practices of children allowed to establish how, despite of the restricted urban and socio-economic conditions, they find and generate creative responses that transforms the streets and sidewalks. These spaces, which were not designed for children plays and games, are now transformed by them into symbolic settings of their ludic-social universe. This fact can be interpreted in various ways: First, it means that children are acting as psychological subjects that adopt spontaneously an active position in relationship with the urban environment. Second, it implies, at the same time, that children are developing resilient processes, through which they re-signify their experience. Consequently children are giving themselves new spaces and conditions of existence and well-being. For that reason, it becomes relevant to study in depth the proposals that are aimed to help these neighborhoods (right now so popular and numerous as in the last years the NGOs have proliferated). In that way the projects that have the intention to improve the urban environment, should take on account the cultural production that children are showing and that constitutes a human enrichment for the social development of the city.

Current literature in the social sciences suggests that casual leisure is vital for individual and social wellbeing. The typology of casual leisure developed by leisure scientists includes play, relaxation, passive and active entertainment, sociable conversation and sensory stimulation. While casual leisure may be achieved in both private and public space, of interest to this paper is the role that public space plays in supporting casual leisure. Streets have always been a significant public space in urban areas. In many mixed-use urban neighborhoods, the Main Street supports a myriad of activities and behaviors and serves as a place for informal social interaction and leisure as a part of the daily round. This paper examines the role of the Main Street as a public space for casual leisure. Specifically, this paper addresses the question “What physical, land use and management characteristics of the Main Street support, facilitate and contribute to making it a place for casual leisure?” Research for this paper was conducted on three Main Streets in two cities and one town in the Boston metropolitan area in Massachusetts in the United States. Extensive structured and semistructured observations and visual surveys were conducted over eight months to determine user behavior associated with six activities that form the typology of casual leisure as defined by social scientists. A Casual Leisure Index (CLI) was created to measure the six activities associated with casual leisure that occurred in the public space of the street. The CLI was systematically calculated at each 60 feet segment of the Main Street. Simultaneously, physical urban design characteristics, land use attributes and management qualities were measured for all the 60 feet segments to determine which of these supported making the Main Street a suitable setting for casual leisure activities. All three Main Streets were used by people to engage in casual leisure. However, extensive observations showed that people did not equally use all parts of the Main Streets for leisure activities. The findings reveal that people were able to engage in casual leisure in places on the Main Street that had a combination of eleven physical, land use and management characteristics. These findings have implications for urban design, community planning and economic development policies and suggest ways to make the Main Street a better public space for casual leisure and hence a place for social well-being.

Public spaces are receiving a considerable amount of attention both in the research literature as well as in public policy and practical planning. Public spaces are recognised as important areas of the city which contribute to the quality of life of its citizens. Social interaction was and remains a defining requirement of city life. Public spaces have always been functionally important in providing opportunities for social interaction and communication (Gumpert and Druckner, 1992). They were where people gathered to meet, to exchange news, gossip and opinions, to see old friends, to pass the time of day, to be a flâneur. The role and function of public spaces has changed over the past few decades. Underlying these changes is the notion of control – whether it is the desire for control by one group over another be it adults over children, capitalism over consumers, communication technologies over face-to-face interaction. But public places have also been settings for liberation, appropriation and education. This symposium brings together four speakers who discuss these issues by drawing on research from Europe, North and South America.

As part of large-scale, interdisciplinary research project, this paper presents a case study of offshore wind farm development in Wales. Drawing on data from a large-scale questionnaire survey of local residents, we aim to clarify the relationships amongst several psychological factors believed to influence public acceptance (i.e. levels of support amongst local residents) of renewable energy technologies, including trust, procedural justice, efficacy and emotional response. In addition, we focus upon some aspects of place theory (attachment, identity and symbolic beliefs) that may play a role in influencing local residents’ cognitive and emotional responses to the project, and their willingness to take various forms of action, for example signing petitions, writing letters or joining a protest group. We hypothesise that place related symbolic beliefs and general affective responses to a project guides subsequent, more specific judgments, which in turn lead to various forms of ‘place protective’ actions.

This paper presents: (1) a discussion on QoL indicators relevant to examining resident’s housing location preferences in urban, peri-urban and rural areas; and (2) a theoretical framework to examine QoL indicators; and (3) a methodology to examine QoL indicators in rural-urban-regions based on Conjoint Analysis (CA) procedures. The notion of ‘affordances’ is proposed as a useful concept to understand the relativity of QoL indicators. Affordances are what the environment offers an individual both in physical and social terms. Given its transactional character, affordances provide a theoretical basis to guide the analysis of residents’ housing preferences as well as the possibility of predicting choice behaviour according to changes in the scenario, through the use of the Market Simulator. This project focuses on a multi-method approach with particular emphasis on the use of Conjoint Analysis (CA) procedures. CA represents a group of statistical techniques for measuring relative importance of choice attributes when considered jointly as in real life choice processes. It makes use of a Market Simulator which gives the likelihood of choice for different concepts —or scenarios— in which one or more of its attributes change. This predictor tool provides a quantitative way to look at the relative position of the various attributes considered —seen as a set of ‘affordances’—when compared to one another. This paper discusses preliminary results and how concepts have been applied to the project, and expected outputs for PLUREL.

The research deals with physical, infra-structural and socio-economic dimensions characterizing a community as a whole (Nuvolati, 1998). More specifically, it is aimed at investigating citizens’ attitudes towards so-called “congestioned services” (Zayczyk, 2000) dealing with pollution and waste disposal. It is hypothesised that citizens have a negative attitudes towards such issues and wish better solutions. A questionnaire was purposely prepared, using a Likert Scale and a Semantic differential and was administered to a sample aged 18-60 years. This research is aimed at evaluating the impact of socio-demographic variables as well as the place of residence (centre vs suburbs) on attitudes towards pollution and waste disposal.

Quality of our living environment matters. Accepting the necessary duality of mutual relationship between places as physical structures and places as people’s engagement with them, it is crucial to monitor spatial attributes as well as primarily non-spatial aspects of places such as cognition, conceptions, involvement in activities etc. to achieve qualitative places. This paper is focussed on public urban open space and its related built frame in the revitalisation processes. It presents the outcomes of recently finished research commissioned by the City Municipality of Ljubljana. This research undertook the approach which was focused on the following main aspects: accessibility and connectivity, usage of built as well as non-built environment and cognition of space. It pays attention particularly on findings resulted from application of both mapping techniques: behavioural mapping and cognitive mapping. They are additionally commented with regard to outcomes of two other separated studies, one concerned with usage of places and the other with the perception of places. Concerning methodology, data were collected by observation & behaviour mapping and interviews & cognitive mapping. Kongresni trg, a historical square of the city centre of Ljubljana, was used as a case study. Such data were analysed in GIS environment and finally confronted by other facts of the studied area such as land use, property, dynamic in mixing uses, etc. The main focus of this paper is on exploration of physical dimensions and characteristics of places through primarily non-spatial attributes of places, such as usage and perception, simultaneously. Recording behavioural patterns of uses and mental images of places in a manner of map-making and its interpretation offers a comprehensive way of communicating diverse spatial issues and values related to them. It also captures and translates these primarily non-spatial data into visual data and preserves its connection to the material place. Both the mapping methods discussed in this paper represents an attempt in bringing together these different aspects from usage, perception and physical appearance of the environment and as such offer a tool for examination and exploration of spatial reality. Moreover, it draws on research methods that combine well established techniques such as observation & behaviour mapping and interviews & cognitive mapping and combines them with the technologies such as GIS.

This research moves from the need for recognizing the widespread social discomfort of urban environments, namely a stronger and stronger need for security as well as a demand of urban transports able to respond to the high level of citizens’ mobility. Urban centres are shaped into complex systems, where psychological factors play a significant role in environmental issues and the success of environmental management policies (Bonnes, 2006). This research aims at investigating into citizens’ attitudes towards quality of live in urban environment (security and viability). The sample is drawn among citizens from main Italian cities and towns. A questionnaire was purposely prepared, using the Couple-comparison method (Thurstone 1927).

The planned, modernist city of Brasília may be considered the prototype of 21th century mobility. All resident older than 50 yrs and many younger were born elsewhere. Traditionally strong family ties and place attachment are in conflict, as a large part of the population live and work, often far, from where their parents live or lived. This contradiction implies questions of choice for important festivities while living, but also of one’s burial site after death. This study analyzes how the conflict between physical and social attachment affects the choice of burial place. Considering site and reasons for burial, what is the importance of social and family attachment, of place attachment, or simply practical considerations? Participants were 57 women and men living in Brasilia between 1 and 49 years, and 15 who were born there. Among those born in Brasília, only 2 want to be buried in their ancestral state, 6 specify Brasília, justifying their choice with physical aspects and convenience. Of the 57 migrants, 10 want to be buried in their state of origin, 20 in Brasília and another 16 advance practical considerations, such as ‘wherever I will be at the moment’. No difference in age or religious affiliation was found between these three groups. Those who want their remains to return lived significantly less time in Brasília (m = 20 yrs) than those who want to stay in Brasília (m = 32 yrs). A significantly higher percentage of women want to stay in Brasília, while more men advance practical reasons. Significantly less married respondents want to have their remains return to their home state, while less single / divorce respondents mention practical considerations. The results suggest that the functional and rational nature of the planned city even colored the choice of burial sites.

Experiential landscape conceptualises a holistic relationship of outdoor open space and human experience related to how people attach significance to preferred places, orientate, and develop neighbourhood awareness. Routine exposure to these experiences provides foundations from which neighbourhoods form and where communities may establish and sustain. We will explain components and procedures of experiential landscape and then describe its application to public participation in a village community to reveal its identity and sense of place. We show how residents’ interviews were coded to reveal the experiential landscape of the village. Interpretation of this highlights how certain locations and features in the village and beyond come to prominence and how these help to understand a range of issues concerned with the village’s sense of community, boundary perceptions and relationship to surrounding landscape and neighbouring settlements.

The daily lives of individuals are experienced in multiple and diverse psychological and social zones. Increasingly we function across overlapping and simultaneous boundaries of place – some physical, others mediated, some public, others private. The ecology of place has been altered, irrevocably changed, with more and more of our psychological time spent in non-place settings. Psychological presence, awareness and attachment to physical space are influenced by the ubiquitous and mobile nature of media connection and availability. Extended mediated relationships have advanced into foreground, while operational community has receded into the background. Communication technologies are not simply superimposed upon the environment of home, office, and street but rather, are reciprocal agents of symbiotically related change. As the invention of glass windows changed the psychology of being inside, the integration of the telephone into the home and later into the street as a constant companion was not simply an extension of social interaction, but changed the nature of being outside. The space for living, working, shopping and playing are redefined on the basis of a technological repertoire. At the same time the needs and demands of space and place are altered by such communication possibilities. Home, office, and street are defined and redesigned either before or after the active presence of the technology has changed behavior and use. This symposium will explore intersections of the physical and media environments and the consequences evidenced in diverse places including libraries, cafes, airports, parks, streets, museums, and other public spaces. Participants will explore how communication technologies ranging from flat screen television sets and mobile phones to Wi- Fi and surveillance technologies are redefining the use and users of traditional spaces.

Demographic development appears to be one of the major explanatory factors of urbanization. Due to an ongoing process of depopulation sprawl at the urban fringe is currently expected to decrease. Taken Germany as a representative case for the population dynamics of the industrialized world, we show that recent demographic change causes a diversity new land use and socio-economy patterns which are contraintuitive to simple growth phenomena. Although more and more German counties are depopulating we show that land take increases continuously. Labour-based migration in particular divides the Germany into gaining, stable and shrinking regions in terms of population and urban land. By way of an example, we identify typical eastern German ‘post-socialist’ patterns of change, low fertility and out-migration, in western Germany.

In 1987, Altman and Rogoff shared their insightful analysis of the various and often conflicting worldviews underlying the work of research psychologists, particularly those whose focus was on understanding the relationships between people and the environment. Their taxonomy classified the range of peopleenvironment relational research into four perspectives: trait, interactional, organismic, and transactional. In the decades since, environmental design research has continued to morph, into a field in which there is no doubt a multiplicity of viewpoints at work. This paper explores the epistemological assumptions found in major approaches to inquiry within environmental design research. It does so in relation to the condition of environmental design practice as being largely intuitive and tacit. A focus is upon the nature of evidence within each paradigm leading to a timely consideration of the concept of “evidence-based design” (Hamilton, 2006). Since the nature of knowledge varies between paradigms, and evidence is that knowledge which compels acceptance by the mind of a truth, how one would define evidence-based design may very well depend upon one’s mode of thinking. Herein lays the danger of current discussions within evidence-based design which has unspoken but powerful underlying assumptions regarding the nature of evidence and the nature of the problem. These assumptions are explicated and addressed within the diversity of research approaches undertaken within design inquiry. Discussion will highlight the need for a more inclusive definition of evidence within environmental design given the nature of the architectural enterprise as necessarily projective. From this perspective, valued evidence is more strongly related to prediction (forecasting) than explanation; hence the continuing reliance on tacit knowledge in the design process (Schon, 1983). If evidence-based design is to concern itself with developing knowledge that may inform the design process, a richer understanding of the epistemological underpinnings is necessary to further the dialogue on the nature of applicable research.

Public space has always been shaped by the extant media landscape. Public space functions as a medium of communication in so far that messages are carried through communication in those spaces. These spaces are arguably one of the oldest forms of media. From mobile phones and jumbrotrons to PDAs and Wi-Fi, communication technologies are redefining the human-environment relationship. Public spaces are being changed by communication technology creating new spaces. We suggest the term augmented spaces as a useful term conceptualizing the new public spaces which account for physical and electronic elements of public space. An effectively designed augmented public space would provide complementary physical environments and media alternatives. At heart is the essential value of human as communicator gliding between physical and media environments, functioning in each based upon the needs served in each. We exist and function in several environments. The first is a physical environment characterized and defined by the fixed feature of topography, dwellings and structures, streets and thoroughfares, public space, and those who inhabit places. That environment, in the name of safety, security, and economics, requires regulation and government control of some type. The second environment is a communication environment consisting of face-to-face communication, a technological infrastructure serving multiple media of communication – some mass, some micro, and others interpersonal. The physical environment has a long tradition of regulation while the regulation media in public space is emerging. A taxonomy of regulation of augmented spaces will be proposed in which the indirect, intentional, or unintended regulations which influence communication media in public spaces will be examined. A case study of, regulations governing diverse communication technologies in New York City will be provided addressing such areas of concern as mobile telephony, wi-fi, jumbrotrons, billboards, boomboxes and other media systems, both public and private, entering public space.

In this article it is intended to analyze the influence of two qualitative concepts on each other as ‘essential and similar qualities of vernacular architecture’ and ‘essence of architectural space’. As both concepts are based on human nature and basic and natural human needs, it is suggested that the understanding of this relationship can provide a better analysis for nature-based architectural approaches which have arisen after mid of twentieth century. Due to the vast meaning of nature in the definition and concept, it can be found out that the meaning of ‘essence’ as one of the meanings of ‘nature’ is less valued and consequently this influence on architectural space is concentrated more on physical aspects of nature. So the suggested approach in this article is to focus on the meaning of essence of architectural space regarding to the similar qualities of vernacular architecture.

RVF-Central) The central visual field was restricted with the mask installed a shielding. RVF-Peripheral) The peripheral visual field was restricted with the old mask. RVF-Normal) Un-restricted condition, where the subjects were wearing the experimental mask without restricting any visual field. NVF) Wearing an eyecamera (nac EMR-9), this condition had been given in order to assure the result of the comparison with getting the comprehension about the pattern of fixation at the same maze. By the analysis about the changing of the characteristic behaviors, the walking speed and the difference of the movement of each restricted visual field, the following results were obtained

There are many health benefits of even light-to-moderate activity, but getting people engaged in any dedicated exercise program is difficult. Commuting may be an opportunity to insert more physical activity into regular routines. This cross-sectional study was designed to compare actual levels of physical activity for car and train commuters who recorded number of steps for one week, and completed an activity questionnaire. Transit riders were 4 times more likely than car commuters to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. Multiple regression with controls for income, gender, and education showed that train commuters average almost 30% more steps per day than car commuters. 12% of the variance in weekly walking is explained by transportation mode, net of the controls. Train commuters were more likely to report having days with some (>10 minutes) physical activity than were car commuters controlling for income, gender, and education level.

Navigating in an environment means not only orienting. Beside the orienting process, it seems to involve also planning, that is another process considered as a form of problem solving. A navigation through the environment without a plan may be not efficient as it is. Despite these consideration, very few studies drew attention on interaction between planning and wayfinding (i.e., finding a way in the environment we are navigating in), using a planning task within a wayfinding task in either a real or a simulated environment. In cognitive psychology, visuospatial planning process has been studied using the “Traveling Salesperson Problem” (TSP), which simulates a salesperson who has to achieve all the errands displayed on a map in the shortest route and time. In the present work, a 3D version task developed from the Maps task (a 2Dcomputerized task based on TSP paradigm) was used: subjects should navigate by means of a computer keyboard into a 3D simulation of a regular grid of gangways, aiming to collect all the subgoals. During the execution of the task, rTMS stimulation at 1 Hz of either the parietal (P3 or P4) and frontal (F3 or F4) lobes was hypothesized to induce a worsening in the performance only if these areas are involved in the task. Since both planning and wayfinding are required to efficiently execute the task, a network of cortical areas has been hypothesized to be their neural substrate. In particular, we hypotesized that: a) rTMS on PFC should disturb the execution of the plans; b) inhibition of PPC should interfere with plan creation in its visuospatial and representational components; c) gender differences may emerge from the stimulation of the 2 hemispheres and areas. Hypotheses were confirmed by several results: TMS generally worsened women performance when stimulating right PPC, while men performed worse when left PFC was stimulated. In general, males exhibited shortest paths, execution and planning time with respect to females. Planning during a wayfinding task, therefore, seems to involve a cerebral network based on PPC and PFC. An explanation for the role of the 2 regions is proposed: PPC is mainly involved in generating a plan based on the environment representation, while PFC monitors the execution of the plan and, if needed, operates a switch to a new plan. Moreover, sexual differences are found to modulate the distribution of these processes.

This article derives from the partial results of a broader research, still under development, on Place Attachment in mall users in Venezuela. Attachment is showed in the case of Venezuelan cities, in association with a search for greater personal safety, given an increase in urban delinquency. Fear of criminal acts seems to be an important aspect which affects the preferences of Venezuelan mall users for these multifunctional spaces. Furthermore, malls in Latin-American cities, especially Venezuelan ones, could be competing with other public spaces, in terms of user preferences, with respect to restorative places. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss this issue. The study used both a quantitative and qualitative method approach, with a sample of eight (8) malls, in five (5) Venezuelan cities, namely: Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia, Barquisimeto and San Cristobal. In each mall, a sample of 30 women, between the ages of 24 and 58 years old, were interviewed in situ, with a semi-structured ad hoc questionnaire. Close-ended questions are intended to be analyzed statistically, while open-ended questions were content-analyzed. Partial results confirm general Place Attachment among individuals in every sample. Mall users show a greater preference for malls as restorative places, than for traditional public spaces in the different cities sampled. The mall is perceived as a clean, safe and controlled space, which differentiates it from an increasingly unsafe, often poorly maintained, and/or unattractive traditional public space. It seems necessary to obtain a balance between both environments. The upsurge of Malls has definite positive consequences, such as economy activation and architectural development. However, it is also evident that many of our cities are in urgent need of rescuing, improving and/or creating urban public spaces, for the recreation, entertainment and leisure of the citizens.

This research is the one to have reviewed relation between the seat-configuration and the post of the working person for the office work space in the government office building in Japan. The purpose is because it aimed at “the advantage of the place” and “the territory consciousness” which is seen there. Recently, the reorganization of the public administration is remarkable with the merger of the local government in Japan. This research was done by the following 3 corner contents. 1)The relation between the post and the seatconfiguration of the working person in the local government. 2)The change of the working environment of the old and the new which moved fully by building n the government office building. 3)The relation between the working number of years and the seat position of the working person in the local government. As for the seat position of the working person who works in the local government in Japan from the result of the investigations, a correlation with the post and the working number of years was attended. Also, the tendency not to arrange the other working person behind the post person of the higher rank from the result of examining a seat-configuration according to the post, and so on, was seen. Moreover, the interesting tendency that the seat position of the working person moves about 30 cm in a year from the restraint to have assumed that it worked until the mandatory retirement for the higher rank job, and so on, was seen. However, that those tendencies weren't seen by the working person of the woman was pointed out as the problem. In the future, it proceeds with the reviewing than the space of the working of the government office in the Europe and America.

This study aims to consider the ideal state of community toward deinstitutionalization as the children’s residential environment in the future by assaying Hope Meadows that aims at child and the family’s support through intergenerational exchanges. Recently, the necessity of independence support and individual treatment is asked in the background of diversification and complication of the child problem in Japan. Therefore, institutions form and system of support have been made small-scale. To the traditional form where they share rooms and equipments in one building and live in a bunch, now there are attempts such as a form where solitary houses few children and staffs live in or an alike one which is located I a community trying to merge into the society. However, they are still within the institution limit. It is difficult to attempt making an existing form to the small scale. There are problems of precedence. Not until the law is revised or the system will be enacted does the discussion will start in Japan. We have to think how the children’s livings should be. At this, three subjects are posed in this paper: 1) system precedence, 2) role of taking place at home and 3) a support system making the most of the quality of small-scaled space. This case study is based on the point of deinstitutionalization of the child care institution. Hope Meadows is a neighborhood where neglected and abused children who have been removed from their parents, find a permanent and caring home. It was developed by Generations of Hope (a 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation). Their philosophy is to create a diverse intergenerational neighborhood to support families of adopted foster children. Adoptive families can get the support and information they need, children can finally find a place to call home, and elders find real purpose and meaning in their daily lives. Analytic points are as follows: 1) project based on philosophy, 2) support system for family as a unit and the intergenerational program, 3) a community-wide support. Analysis showed that the following factors are needed for the children’s residential environment and support: environment 1) without prejudice, 2) that can flexibly correspond to changes, and system of support 3) where both support and idea will be succeeded to, 4) that offers continuous support in daily life, with 5) senior’s positive participation. An intergenerational community that is able to offer a community-wide support is required in Japan.

This study compares the mobility of teenagers living in Quebec City’s metropolitan area, with an emphasis on the impact of the location on their level of dependent mobility. The presentation combines the results of two studies. First, a 2005 qualitative survey of 30 teenagers aged between 12 and 18 and living in six exurban territories within the Quebec City metro area, which describes their mobility patterns as well as representations of territories, mobility and transportation modes. Second, a quantitative analysis using the 2001 “Origins-Destinations Transportation Telephone Survey” for the Quebec metro area, comparing the mobility of 5784 teenagers according to their residential location (inner-city, postwar suburbs, recent suburbs, exurbs and rural locations). The results of qualitative study indicate that teenagers who live in exurban territories spent several hours a week sitting in a school bus or in the back of their parents’ car (or of other significant adults). Very few teenagers were biking or walking for any utilitarian purposes, or were using public transportation (or had ever tried it). The exurban locations offered few sidewalks and safe biking roads, and efficient public transportation (if any), discouraging or preventing teenagers to walk, bike or use public buses. The quantitative analysis corroborates these findings with no significant differences found according to age or gender. Teenagers without a driving license are more likely to be dependent of school bus or others’ car for their mobility. The level of teenagers’ dependent mobility was found to increase with residential location getting further away from inner-city neighborhoods. Teenagers who live in inner city, postwar or recent suburbs were more likely to be independent in their trips compared with those residing in exurban and rural territories. Living in exurbia generally meant a limited access to nearby retailing services, as well as to institutions and amenities located further away from the house (such as schools, public libraries, public pools and sports facilities), and, as a direct consequence, longer distances to drive on a daily basis. The consequences of dependent mobility on teenagers’ resulting lifestyles as well as cognitive and socio-affective development are discussed.

This paper presents prelimenary findings of a PhD study in progress. The study is on Residential Location Choices in Informal Settlements in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study employs a case study approach and uses qualitative methods (in-depth face-to-face interviews) to capture information on residential location choice decisions of respondents in the informal settlements. 3 settlements have been studied whose location differs in relation to the City centre namely, inner 'proximity to work' as the main reason for inner city residents; Low costs of living, proximity to relatives and home village for peri-urban residents and proximity to a good natural environment for intermediete residents. However in all the stories social networks appeared to facilitate and influence the main reasons.

The role and the value of the residential environment (in particular housing and the district) are defined by the subjective evaluation of the place. Several authors focus on the identity of place (Lalli, 1992; Mercado, 2002). Others focus on the residential history and mobility (Fleury-Bahi, 2000; Moser, 2007). One of the concepts closely related to the urban life and housing is the concept of identity in its individual and social dimensions. The fact of having the feeling to share the same values and ideologies contributes to the wellbeing of the individual as well as to a residential satisfaction. In opposition, the feeling of being a stranger in the neighbourhood is accompanied by feelings of rejection. Consequently the adequacy between place identity and individual identity is supposed to determine the individual’s relation to the residential environment.

Nowadays we seem to be in presence of an increase of interest on environmental issues. environment became a daily subject in people’s mind and social interaction. In general, the presence of green areas in the residential neighbourhood has been found to predict residential satisfaction among urban inhabitants. Green areas play a social and community role and also have an important ecological and environmental function. They are often related to a positive attiitudes but can be at the same time, associated to negative phenomena like fear for personal safety or perception of low environmental control. Therefore, some authors suggested that people might develop ambivalent attitudes towards urban green spaces (see Bonnes et al., 2004; 2007). This paper presents a comparative study made in Rome (N=100) and Lisbon’s neighbourhoods (N=76), both characterized by high amounts and high quality of urban green. The instrument used was a selselfadministered questionnaire composed by five Likert-type scales, plus socio-demographic indicators. The scales were: The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP); Attitudes towards urban green areas; Perceived residential green-areas quality; Neighbourhood attachment and Frequency of use of green areas in the residential neighbourhood, in another residential neighbourhood and outside the city. Results highlight a good internal consistency of all the instruments (Cronbach’s • over .8). A bi-dimensional structure of attitudes towards urban green areas emerged: a first dimension was labelled people-urban nature Integration attitudes (IntA), while the second one was labeled people-urban nature Opposition attitudes (OpA). These two subscales were negatively and moderately correlated and showed different patterns of correlation with the other constructs measured. Both groups revealed a co-existence of pro and anti ecological orientation, in what concerns NEP endorsment. Results also revealed some differences between the compared groups, with Rome’s inhabitants showing more favorable attitudes to urban green areas and a more frequent use of these spaces in their own residential neighborhood. The practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

In the fields of Architecture, Design and Built Environment the construction of a new building, or modification to existing ones, is far from simple and it entails that the different possibilities should be visualised before the construction commences. During the design process the Architect/Designer makes use of different traditional and computer aided drawings to work out the possibilities of their design, with the end goal of communicating the design to other professionals and prospective client/end-users. The drawing is the medium through which the whole process is communicated and thus it is central to the whole design/construction endeavour. This thesis will be looking at one of the most common ways final design is communicated to the client/end-user: computer generated renders (CGRs). This common practice uses computer software, also known as computer aided design (CAD), to produce high quality drawings that basically mimic in a photo-realistic way (three dimensional -3D- perspective) how the building will look once it has been built. Research on environmental preference has shown that several factors affect why people may like a space, for example the complexity of the space, the lighting conditions, the balance of urban and natural elements, the style of the design, etcetera. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that not only aspects of the physical environment have an impact on preference, thus factors such as the attachment people have to a space, their use of the space and even the emotional state a person is in may also affect preference. This thesis will describe how architects and designers make use of Computer Generated Renders to present final designs to clients/end-users, focusing on the way that processes such as attention, perception and emotion play an important part on how people understand them. Specifically, the thesis will examine if (a) the emotional state that people are in affects environmental preference and (b) if the role that people take whilst evaluating an environment accounts for their reported preference. The thesis will build up from the literature review moving towards an exploratory study and finishing with a robust main experiment(s) using both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analyses.

Research on restorativeness has its roots in Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan, 1995) and has investigated which environmental features promote individual “restoration” (Hartig & Staats, 2003), that is recovery from stress and cognitive fatigue, and directed attention retrieval. In most studies on this topic, showing the higher restorativeness of natural environments, participants had to rate the restorative potential of places represented in images of natural and built environments. Recent studies (e.g. Scopelliti & Giuliani, 2004; Staats & Hartig, 2004) revealed the influence of social factors (being alone vs. being in company), stage of the lifespan and time available for restoration on the restorative potential of natural and built environments, insofar moving the attention in the “real” places as they are experienced by people. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the restorative power of different environments which are located in individuals’ memories or impressions and are here categorized as the best vs. worst restorative. Thus, the focus is on places as they were experienced by people, both directly (frequency and use) and indirectly (social construction of which places are restorative and which are not). It is hypothesized that i) the highest restorative places score higher than the lowest restorative places in all the four dimensions of restorativeness and are assessed as more natural, rural, and opened, and with less presence of people and lowest human influence; ii) there are no differences in such evaluative dimensions within the two highest restorative places and the two lowest restorative places. About 200 Ss participated to the study, half of whom were “experts” of landscape management (technicians or politicians). Respondents were asked to imagine two restorative and two non-restorative places and then they had to rate such places by means of both the Perceived Restorativeness Scale and some items measuring familiarity with the place, company they would choose, and the characteristics of the place along bipolar dimensions such as natural vs. artificial, presence vs. absence of people, highest vs. lowest human influence, urban vs. rural, open vs. closed space. On the whole, results provided evidence to the research hypotheses.

Psychological restoration can occur within settings that support it. In Mexico, few studies have documented the perception of those characteristics of environments that support restoration. The purpose of this work was to assess the restorative features of two types of settings, natural vs constructed, within the metropolitan area of Mexico City. Additional objectives were to adapt and validate the Perceived Restorativeness Scale for use in Mexico, and to assess the influence of gender and age on perceptions of restorative quality. Interviews with 297 men and women yielded data for analysis. In free descriptions of environments for restoration, 47% of 289 participants described natural settings and 35 % described constructed settings. PRS subscales showed adequate internal consistency (alpha > .68). Comparing the type of setting in terms of restorative qualities, Fascination, Compatibility, Coherence, and Being Away were all rated higher in natural settings. Women scored significantly higher than men on the same subscales, but age did not appear to influence perceptions of restorativeness. The findings support the use of the PRS as a valid and reliable instrument within the Latin American context, useful for research and promotion of such settings that allow people to recover their physical and psychological resources.

Natural elements in built environments have shown to hold potential stress-reducing properties, also referred to as restorative environments. Two laboratory experiments shed light on the underlying mechanism of stress-reducing effects of nature. In study 1, participants exposed to a hospital room with indoor plants reported less stress than those in the control condition. Results showed that this stress-reducing effect is mediated by the perceived attractiveness of the room. In study 2 (indoor plants vs. figurative painting of a tree vs. control) this mediation was replicated. This study showed that not only is stress reduced by indoor plants, but by a painting of nature as well. Apparently, both real plants and a painting of a tree activate the concept of nature, as revealed by a word fragment completion task. These findings are explained by the theoretical notion that people have a tendency to prefer natural settings to built environments.

In the discussion about the sustainability of everyday settings, the study of restorative environments has recently gained attention for the healthy outcomes deriving from the transactions between individuals and such environments. According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), the experience in those environments may help people regain a higher effectiveness in their cognitive functioning. ART claims that a measure of the restorative potential of environments can be obtained through the assessment of four components, namely being-away, fascination, extent, and compatibility. The literature on this topic has mainly focused on young people and adults’ perception of restorative environments often by comparing natural and built settings. On the whole, a higher restorative potential of natural environments consistently emerged. To date, this line of research has rarely involved primary school pupils. The aim of this study was to evaluate the distinctive restorative potential of familiar natural and built environment for children. An Italian version of the Perceived Restorative Component Scale for Children was administered to 164 pupils aged 10-11 and balanced by gender with reference to four everyday settings. In addition we measured the cognitive and affective response to the environment through a semantic differential and the level of autonomy in the environments. A factor analysis performed on PRCS-S items identified a three-factor solution, with beingaway, fascination and compatibility clearly outlined, and extent items merging in the other dimensions. Factors showed a satisfactory internal consistency. Results confirmed a higher restorative potential of natural environment and showed that positive emotions and cognitive benefits increase when perceived restorativeness is higher. The level of autonomy differently affects the perception of restorativeness of natural and built environments. In particular, the level of being-away and compatibility is higher in natural environments when children are away from their parents’ control and spend their time with friends. Conversely, perceived fascination of built environments is higher for children accompanied by their parents. Finally, gender differences emerged in the evaluation of built environments, being measures of perceived components higher for females than for males. No gender difference was outlined for natural environments.

PLEASE DISREGARD EARLIER SUBMISSION: Restorative environments have drawn the attention of increasing numbers of researchers and practitioners in the environment-behavior-design field. This symposium brings together new contributors to restorative environments research, all of whom are using psychological theory and methods to identify and address important knowledge gaps. Their presentations cover diverse aspects of restorative processes and the environmental characteristics that promote restoration

The restoration perspective complements the stress perspective as a source of insights into how the environment affects effective functioning and well-being. It reveals that a restorative environment involves more than the mere absence of stressors, and that efforts to improve human-environment relations can aim to promote restorative experiences as well as eliminate or mitigate the causes of negative experiences. This symposium brings together researchers whose work exemplifies the value of the restoration perspective. Their presentations offer a variety of insights on restorative environments, and they give a sense of the range of issues being addressed in this rapidly growing area of research activity. In particular, they speak to the emerging interest in two areas: the possibilities for restorative experiences in the urban context, and restorative experience as a positive motivational basis for ecological behavior.

Several studies have shown that people tend to prefer natural over urban environments. The reason for this might be that preferences for naturalness are related to a need for restoration. The current trend in European city planning is densification. This means that access to large urban green areas is under threat. Parks are lost or reduced in size due to the pressure for the construction of housing or offices. When new urban areas are planned, society might not economically afford, or do not prioritise, building bigger parks. Therefore, smaller green alternatives such as pocket parks, roof gardens and avenues are likely to become more important. This project will analyse relationships between landscape preferences and restorative values in pocket parks. It will set out to develop guidelines for designing attractive and restorative small urban green spaces. The objectives are: • To investigate if small urban green spaces can promote restoration. • To identify elements and designs that are most relevant for predicting public preference for small urban green restorative spaces. Three complementary methods will be used to achieve the objectives of the study from different angles. Study 1, is a photo-based preference study measuring potential for restoration. The question addressed is Can smaller urban green spaces promote restoration? Study 2, is a literature review followed by a preference study using Conjoint method. The question addressed in the review is: What elements and designs are described as important for preference and/or restoration in the research literature on urban green spaces? The question addressed in the conjoint study is: What elements and designs, or combinations of them, are most important for predicting public preference for small urban green spaces? Study 3, is an experimental study using digital models of environments, measuring preference and potential for restoration. An environment, containing a pocket park and the surrounding buildings, will be created using virtual reality technique.

Restorative settings feature in health care facilities as therapeutic gardens for the sick. Their value in wider urban realms is less well explored. An internationally significant agenda to make cities responsive to wellbeing in urban populations is well established and restorative urban open spaces are now more necessary than ever. Achieving this requires reorientation in design to emphasise human response to place in urban design solutions. Using a special format of research led teaching we outline how restorative environments research relates to urban design theory and practice. Post graduate students in Sheffield and Milan have broadened restorative environments research in the context of socially sustainable urban neighbourhood design. Focused on open space networks, conceptual models show how natural, ecological and social dimensions of place synthesize to reveal design implications for creating urban neighbourhood settings with restorative potential.

Recently, residential environments have been paid attention to as a restorative environment, place to restore from everyday stress and mental fatigue. Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), a scale developed by Hartig and his colleagues (Hartig et al., 1997) based on Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) was translated into Japanese by the authors and adopted to measure the restorativeness of participants’ residences. Restorative environments for child-rearing stress were asked by open-ended questions. Participants were parents who recently purchased a residence in one of four condominium buildings in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan. The questionnaire was sent to 64 families with children of and under junior high school one month before, one month after, and six months after moving in the new residence. This study only reports the data of one month before moving in. Forty-four families (3 were only mothers) responded and the analysis was done here for parents with children under 6, which consisted of 34 mothers (average age 32.71, S.D. 4.32) and 32 fathers (average age 34.41, S.D. 4.36). The average age for the oldest child was 4.63(S.D. 2.59) and for the youngest child was 2.24 (S.D. 1.48). The average numbers of children were 1.82 (S.D. 0.63) per family. Since PRS’s factors are not stable over studies, a factor analysis (principal factor method, oblique rotation) was conducted. As a result, 5 factors similar to the original were extracted. There was a significant difference for Being Away between mothers and fathers by ANOVA (F(1,64)=5.65, p

For people with dementia the design of the building they live in is of high importance.There are many different design modifications that have been made to pre-existing homes of people with dementia and to those newly built.However, design has not been informed by research in this field, the majority of studies are post-evaluation or qualitative studies looking at staff and relatives’ perceptions of the changes in behaviour of patients after design modifications. It is proposed that the main research project will collect observational data before and after deisgn modifications have been put in place in a number of dementia specific nursing homes to add to and complement the range of research which already exists on the subject. This presentation will discuss the range of research already in existance and will be categorised in terms of its methodology, outcomes and interventions in relation to the planned project.

The landscape of health care organisations worldwide is changing with the rapid and widespread adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT). These technologies not only change the use of physical space, but also the ways work is performed and people communicate. For example, paper records are replaced with computers on wheels or walls, and fixed and mobile computer terminals need to be housed within existing spaces. Work traditionally undertaken in one location is now completed in multiple sites. For instance, clinicians previously could rarely order medications without physically being on the ward where the patients’ medication chart was located now this is possible with information technology. Information systems are often promoted as making work safer and more efficient. Yet evidence of these effects is limited. Taking work to new locations and performing tasks in different ways has been shown to reduce synchronous communication between health professionals which in some cases was associated with misunderstandings and errors, and to increase the time clinicians spend alone. Such changes may have significant implications for quality of care as clinical errors are often associated with communication breakdowns, isolation or a lack of team-based care. There is currently limited data about existing patterns of work and communication among hospital-based professionals. The aim of this research was to quantify work and communication patterns of doctors and nurses on hospital wards. We designed and applied an observation technique which incorporated the development of data collection software on a handheld computer. We observed 70 clinicians for in excess of 400 hours as they performed their everyday activities. We will present data on how clinicians distributed their work time in terms of what and with whom tasks were undertaken, the information tools used, as well as how frequently tasks were interrupted or undertaken in parallel. The findings dispel previously held views about how clinicians’ spend their time and the extent to which doctors and nurses interact. Further, the implications of ICT will be discussed drawing upon examples from unstructured observations in hospitals in which new ICT has been introduced. These examples highlight the central role work-space design has in increasing the risk of interruption, preventing ICT from being used in the ways intended, result in the development of workarounds, and increase the risk of errors.

Security issues play a central role in influencing residents’ satisfaction toward everyday life in cities. Insecurity is studied mostly in terms of psychological reactions to crime and fear of crime. This study aims to assess the perception of safety and fear of crime of the residents of one or more neighborhoods (and/or different areas of the same neighborhood) of the city of Rome, applying the cumulative risk model. The model suggests that it is the combination of risk factors – more than the action of a single factor – that it is mostly related to negative outcomes for users’ well-being. Two main categories of factors are relevant here: physical and psycho-social-relational features. Another aim is to compare “subjective” data about safety and “objective” data about physical characteristics and crime rates in the neighborhood(s). Integrating subjective and objective data represents an effort made to reduce the existing gap between different typologies of evaluation (experts vs. users’). This integration can be made with the support of GIS technologies. In this study, GIS allows to integrate “soft” data (e.g., residents’ perceptions about safety/insecurity) and “hard” data (e.g., crime rates reported by the police) and to facilitate the visualization of the data and their communicability. Main hypotheses: H1) Independently of single risk factor effect, even if strong, the cumulative effect of physical and social risk factors rises the level of perception of insecurity and fear of crime and lowers the scores of safety and well-being among residents. H2) On the whole, perceived physical incivilities are the best predictors of insecurity and fear of crime among residents. H3) Perceived variables mediate the relation among objective variables and final criteria: the higher the social and physical risk factors, the higher the perceived risk factors, the higher the perception of insecurity and fear of crime (and the lower the perception of safety and well-being). H4) Psycho-social-relational variables moderate the above general relation: residents with higher scores in relevant psycho-social-relational variables (e.g., informal control and social cohesion/trust) show lower scores of insecurity and fear of crime compared to residents with lower scores on the same variables. Three studies are proposed to test the hypotheses of the study (1 qualitative, 2 quantitative).

Safety in work environments is, among others, a critical issue of the developmental and environmental objectives of Agenda 21 program for sustainable development in the world (see Chapter 6 “Protecting and promoting human health”, mainly section E: 6.39, 6.40; 6.41) and can be connected with the convention for the Conservation of Biological Diversity. Safety is to the work setting as species’ life is to their ecosystem. The aim of this paper is to show that work safety is an outcome of the work settings rather than an outcome of its “inhabitant”. Based on the ecological perspectives of psychology, this paper demonstrates that effective and productive safety policies to be implemented at work emerge, consequently, from the specificity of the “ecological environment”, counteracting, therefore, the increasing globalisation and standardization of policies and regulations. By doing so, it fits to the diversity of work settings in the labour world around the world.

Safety for children in the city - a formula for children's well-being or for restraining children? These last years the well-being of children seems increasingly to be handled, managed and thought of according to a paradigm of security and protection. This is a paradigm evident in many parents’ views of the environment for their children and perhaps one reason why we today have a greater diversity in children’s environmental experiences in the city than earlier. In this symposium we address the question of environmental consequences for children's mobility, access and use of the outdoors in the city when security and protection are given priority in measures taken by parents as well as when children themselves restrict their mobility due to fear of being outdoors. Physical environment has always but in different ways been experienced as a challenge by people. It is therefore important that children get environmental experiences, which form a stable platform for them from which they can orient themselves in the environment and handle environmental challenges. Only under physically and emotionally safe conditions will children get these experiences. In a historical perspective we see how the older generation has shown the younger ways to handle challenges in nature and in the built environment. In doing so demands by parents have been made on their children in harsher or softer ways, depending on the perception of the seriousness of the environmental situation as well as on the character of the relationships between parents and children and ideas about how much children should and can be protected. The current paradigm of security and protection of children’s outdoor experiences seems to reflect uncertainty on the part of many parents as well as an inability to successfully adapt to a situation they experience as new. Two aspects of the present situation often expressed by parents living in big cities as fearful for their children outdoors is that of increasing traffic and of handling encounters with many and strange people. Depending on age, environmental and social situation children themselves handle issues of safety differently and their needs for parental and adult support differ. The relational complexity of children and parents concerning safety for children outdoors shows that environmental conceptions as emotionally highly charged

Latin American megacities are subject to unprecedented transformation processes at speed and scale such as social, economical, institutional, spatial, cultural and ecological ones. This is also the case of Santiago de Chile where these transformations are accompanied by an intensive socio-spatial differentiation which has a powerful impact on land use patterns. Concerning this matter, the traditional large scale of socio-economic residential segregation has dominated the urban landscape of Santiago de Chile for a long time. Nevertheless, at present, these traditional patterns have been undergoing transformations in two main aspects: firstly, on a geographical scale at which segregation takes place —in some cases decreasing and in others increasing—, and secondly, on a social scale where segregation’s ‘malignancy’ grows. These two contrary patterns seem to be associated with the globalization process, the liberalization of urban land markets, and the flexibility of labour markets which the Chilean economy has undergone since the 80’s reforms. Based on these tendencies, the new urban structure within Santiago de Chile shows both, new opportunities and social risks for different social groups. Therefore, the emergence of gated communities for medium and high-income groups not located in their traditional areas of residence but rather close to lower income neighbourhoods has been an opportunity for social mixing and social integration processes of former poor areas. Beside these opportunities, social housing programmes have contributed to social exclusion – one dimension of social risks – by building social homogenous ‘ghettos’ at the urban fringe. The contemporary rapid changes of the socioeconomic residential segregation pattern under the influence of real estate markets in Santiago de Chile have inspired the proposed poster. The aim of the poster is: 1) to illustrate the new tendencies of socio-spatial segregation patterns in Santiago de Chile; 2) to describe the influencing factors of these patterns; 3) to outline the possible opportunities and risks of these tendencies; and 4) to delineate possible questions of further investigations.

The future is omnipresent. Almost every day we are faced with economic forecasts until 2010, demographic projections for 2050 or the exact consequences of further global warming in 2100. We are regularly told the height of our state pensions in 30 years, and we have to opt for the schools which best prepare our children for life. But future is not only a problem of everybody’s daily life. Stakeholders at all scales are continuously forced to make decisions and to anticipate their mid- and long-term consequences. Therefore, they are increasingly inclined to base their decisions upon rational, externally legitimated grounds and ask scientists for support – a tendency which is certainly also due to the overwhelming impression of ever higher complexity and information overflow faced by the decision-makers in charge. One strand of futures research which thus developed in recent years quite rapidly are scenario techniques. Scenarios are language-based, complex pictures of a possible, desired or non-desired future which take into account many alternative development paths. They represent a future “in plural”. From the perspectives of inter- and transdisciplinarity, scenarios are a very interesting approach: On the one hand, they allow to integrate different disciplines for analysing a multi-faceted problem from a variety of perspectives. On the other hand, scenarios with the objective of decision-making support cannot be written in the ivory tower. Rather they need the collaboration of various stakeholders – and not just in the end of a research project but (ideally) throughout its whole course. Also in urban and housing research, scenarios gain ground. In my presentation, I want to present two examples of inter- and transdisciplinary scenario processes in projects where the UFZ was involved in recent years. The first example can easily serve as “best practice” and represents the positive pole of transdisciplinary research. The negative pole is mirrored by the second project, where the scenario technique completely failed and the involved decision-makers accused the scientists for not adequately understanding their problems and wasting public funds. I will in particular focus on the lessons learnt from both projects in order to improve future applications of scenarios in transdisciplinary urban and housing research projects.

"After living family, the school is an active socialization’s agent to the childhood and youth, considered a micro-cosmo representative of the world where we live. On this understanding, has grown the social interest with the quick changes and new educational’s systematic, not just the plurality of means provided by technology and the science-edge, but also in relation to the socio-physical experencied environment. Within school, the preocupation with the environmental has been reflected in the institutional’ politics, with obvious valorization of Environmental Education (EE). In Brazil, EE is a compulsory discipline in the basic level of education. However, add a school’s curriculum topic isn’t to establish a social ethics on this aspect. The EE and the school environment need to be comprehended as elements of the citizen’s construction. This posture exiges that the school provides social and environmental practices essential to everyday community’s life (students, teachers, staff). We call these experiments ""socio-environmental practices"". They are activities as: to participate in social and ecological movements and to care with the institution (physical spaces and social issues) and its actors/users. It being understood ""careful"" as any protective action related to the school’s environment. Based on this framework, was studied the perceptions of students about social and environmental practices (with emphasis on the care with the space) in two schools in Joao Pessoa, Paraíba: Medici State Scholl (managed by the state government) and Sesquicentenário Experimental Center - Sesqui (with mixed management, public and cooperative). To it were used survey, analysis of behavioral’s traces, questionnaires and focus group. The two schools have land over 10.000m2, are located in districts with efficient transport system, and their built space are capable of absorbing large numbers of students. They are different in: actual number of students, community involvement, conditions of maintenance (the first shows signs of vandalism, and the second relatively well cared). The students related that in formal terms (scientific) the two schools have similar activities, but the Sesqui develops socio-environmental practices more consistent that the Medici. This is reflected in how students care of the school environment and appropriate it (transforming the ‘space’ in their ‘place’), what can be meaning by who visit the local."

Volgograd, Russia continues to suffer from severe levels of air pollution, despite being the location for one of the first cooperative efforts between the U.S. and Russia after Perestroika to reduce air pollutants. In the Krasnyarmeyski district, in Southern Volgograd, petroleum and other heavy industries make the residential district unsafe for human habitation. More than a decade ago, activists from this district turned educators to create the Ecological Gymnaseum, a school designed to teach Russian children how to live sustainably, to monitor and advocate for change in their community, and to protect and heal children exposed to contaminants. This paper describes this an another nearby school, placing them in a broader framework of social remediation: addressing contaminated areas through adaptive behaviors rather than by reducing or removing the source of danger.

An organization’s environmental responsibility is made up in part by the sum of its individual actor’s actions. Stated policies of environmental responsibility, while desirable, are only part of the picture. A study of environmental responsibility among employees in a natural resource management agency was conducted. Employees were randomly selected through a stratified procedure capturing the range of work settings in two states within the U.S. Respondents (n=451) completed an online survey regarding individual actions in the workplace defined as sustainable operations measures, and were asked their attitudes and opinions about environmental responsibility. The roles of personal commitment, belief in co-worker support, and belief in leadership support, were examined for their ability to predict level of participation in environmentally responsible acts including recycling of various materials, waste reduction, energy conservation, and water conservation. Respondents who were highly committed, believed co-workers were committed, and believed leadership was committed to sustainable operations reported practicing more environmentally responsible acts. Regression analysis revealed that personal commitment accounted for the greatest amount of variance in prediction of level of reported environmental responsibility. Implications for organizational approaches emphasizing and fostering each of these types of commitment (self, coworkers and leaders) are discussed in light of this finding. Emphasis is placed on suggestions aimed at fostering commitment of individual workers ranging from those that increase awareness and knowledge as well as those that emphasize a norm of responsibility.

Sense of place and well-being are two concepts considered to explore relationships between people and the physical environment. Sense of place is viewed as a multi-dimensional concept stressing cognitive (i.e. beliefs and perceptions), affective (i.e. emotions and feelings), and conative (i.e. behavioural intentions, and dependence) dimensions. This research evaluates the importance of sense of place in relationship to the quality of the neighborhood, and the well-being of the community as perceived by elders residing independently in neighborhoods. This paper investigates the effects of quality of neighborhood on sense of place and well-being as perceived by elders in the community. The purpose of the paper is to gain insight into the interaction between physical quality of neighborhood, well-being and sense of place. Results portray the perceptions of 200 elderly neighborhood residents to the shrinking of space, losses in community and physical decline of old age. The results balance these worries against the subjects' sense of place and find a strong desire to age in place in familiar settings in which there are known social and resource connections. The investigation illustrates the power of sense place for aging adults, and the need to recognize its importance in public policy, practice, advocacy, urban and architectural design, and research.

"Introducing People-Environment paradigm, also termed Environment-Behavior Studies EBS, to young designers should be through mainstreaming it within their regular courses. E-B Studies can be useful, not only in defining design problems, understanding existing phenomena, and preparing an architectural program, but also in actual design, by integrating EB concepts and research into design studio teaching; into design thinking. This paper describes how EBS can be used effectively in architectural education by integrating EB concepts and research into design studio teaching, through what is called ""thematic design studios/projects"" instead of “complexity design projects”. This can be implemented in several ways, from programming to POE, to simulation techniques, as suggested in the new Architectural program at AUC in Egypt. On the other hand, field work practice skills can also be emphasized by complementing a Substantive E-B course with a Design Methodology course where students learn about simplified research methods, formulation of behavior-based design guidelines, and integrating research into the iterative design/evaluation process."

Racial segregation is now widely viewed as a negative influence on human societies, a phenomenon that maintains economic inequalities and intensifies racial prejudices. However, evidence suggests that, once established, systems of racial segregation are often difficult to break down. This has raised questions such as: What explains the persistence of segregation? Why does it continue to exercise such a tenacious grip over social life in so many historically divided societies? In this paper, I explore a few social psychological processes that may be relevant to answering such questions, drawing examples from a program of research being conducted in the changing landscapes of post-apartheid South Africa. First, I suggest that the persistence of segregation derives partly from its sedimentation across multiple scales in a social system, including micro-ecological scales of analysis that seldom feature in segregation research. Second, I argue for research that recovers ordinary peoples' understandings of the varying meanings and implications of different forms of desegregation (and the new kinds of social proximity and contact they make possible). As an example, I discuss how everyday constructions of the meaning of places and place identities may lead us to either reject or embrace processes of desegregation. I also discuss how urban planning and design may inadvertently reinforce lay assumptions about the desirability of segregation.

The study was carried out by means of surveys at open plan offices belonging to old (since 1910) and new ( renovated in1990) buildings of the National University of Tucumán. Questionnaires were administered to the personnel in November (summer in Argentina) during the morning in the middle of the working week. Measurements of lighting, temperature, humidity, and noise were also carried out at this occasion. The sample (N=67) was made up of 38 females and 29 males with a mean age of 42 years (SD=10.10). In general, the results showed that offices workers reported complaints related to environmental conditions (particularly noise and lighting). Comparing both buildings, Building Work Related Symptoms (BWRS) were more accentuated in the old building. Environmental complaints such as disturbing noise, bad air, unpleasant smells, smell of mould, draught and cold, excessive heat, dry air, moist air, static electricity, tiring working positions, and organic solvents (ether, petrol, oil, etc.) significantly affected BWRS.

The presented research is set against the background of urban brown-fields (e.g. fallow railway areas) being converted to publicly accessible green spaces. It tries to explain the impact of design alternatives and specific green space features on the residents’ preference. In a first step, it was identified how objective features of urban green spaces are being represented in human perception. Second, a model was developed and tested to explain how such features influence preference – via their impact on perceived beauty, security, and usability. We conducted a photo sorting experiment using photos of different urban green spaces, varying visible natural vs. anthropogenic influence and vegetation type. The participants sorted the photos into groups by subjective similarity and described the chosen groups and/or sorting criteria. They also ranked the photos in respect to personal preference. Using multi-dimensional scaling analysis, a five-dimensional model was found. The five perceptual dimensions were: vegetation height, artificiality, accessibility, prospect, and beauty. While vegetation height and artificiality have been found in studies on general landscape perception, especially the accessibility feature seems more related to urban contexts. A strong connection of the perceived artificiality to preference ratings was found, affirming the importance of visible human influence. For the second step, a series of experiments was conducted, using computer-generated images of urban green spaces. The first experiment used complexity and coherence as predictors for preference: When letting vegetation grow wild, this is considered not beautiful by a great share of the residents. It was proposed that this would be due to wilderness’s high degree of detailedness that may overstrain human information processing and thus lead to lower beauty and preference ratings. An increase in coherence of the scene should increase preference ratings. The results suggest that very simple design measures such as mowing parts of the area annually or adding clearly defined trails can do just that. A second experiment used further modifications of the images. It was to show that specific, low-cost features of green spaces can be used to enhance prospect and perceived human presence. These factors should raise preference ratings via increasing perceived security. The results of the study will be discussed.

In our paper the hypothesis is tested that demographic decline, de-economisation and structural crisis of cities are bringing about a new evolving type of urban development. We present a new social science concept of urban shrinkage that comprises features of non-growth, on-going sprawl and upcoming reurbanisation. Using a system dynamics approach we apply this social science concept in a simulation model which uses variables emerging from this concept as descriptors for population, household and residential processes and pattern. For the model implementation we “translate” non-numerical and only partially quantifiable social science knowledge into model variables. In our presentation we show the simulation of different urban development scenarios assuming a range of population and household formation changes, an increase of single households, altering demands on residential space as well as related vacancies. Thus we identify different ways of extreme or smart growth and shrinkage.

Academics have long thought of cities as primary objects of study but it is only recently that people have begun to think of the city as a learning environment for all persons. The Educating City Movement (1990) for instance has promoted the idea that the whole city can be organized to promote patterns of educational opportunity. However, in both Europe and Latin America the history of the city has been neglected in developing models of the educative city concept. There is a need to build a historical perspective on public spaces into the educative city concept. The historical analysis of human use of public space is a promising area of research. Learning about and then revealing the history and current use of places in a city can contribute to the setting’s establishment and maintenance. The knowledge on this topic can be used to promote greater understanding and shared meanings about the city; in other words, it can help build and consolidate the sense of place in the city. The aim of this proposed area of research is to increase understanding, enhance enjoyment and engender a sense of caring for the present public space and the different protagonist of its past. The presentation will be supported on the historical evolution of social practices in public places of Bogotá, Colombia and their changing associations with different social practices, events and protagonists.

Fear of crime has become one of the most relevant issues that affect urban habitants’ well-being. It turns important therefore to investigate the phenomenon of fear of crime in order to create safer communities. Our symposium aims at addressing fear of crime in built environments by discussing the relative importance of different factors: social ones (e.g., social identity, social control, social integration, social disorder), as well as physical factors (e.g., environmental quality, prospect and escape possibilities, legibility, etc.) and individual ones (e.g. personal experience of insecurity, regularity in uses of place, gender, etc.). Research presented here is supported by a classic for people-environment studies variety of methods: from interviews and questionnaires to observations and visual simulation techniques. Papers of this symposium raise several theoretical problems such as: compared importance of social representations and personal experience in the genesis of fear of crime; roles of urban identity and residential satisfaction in perceptions of safety; the phenomenon of discrepancies between actual crime and perceived crime as well as its’ consequences in terms of behavioural constraints; the balance between physical and social features and its’ implications on perceived safety; perceptions of disorder and their relations to cognitive and emotional components of fear of crime. Finally, authors address dialectics of crime prevention and fear management. These views come from researchers in four European countries: Sergi Valera & Daniel Carro (University of Barcelona) A proposal of an integrated model for the analysis of fear of crime, integrating social urban identity and residential satisfaction Elena Sautkina (Lisbon University Institute) In (security) with others? Perceived safety, social control and security behaviours in university settings Anke Blöbaum (University of Bochum) Perceived danger in public space – the relevance of physical features and the presence of others Marcela-Acuña-Rivera, David Uzzell & Jennifer Brown (University of Surrey) Disorder and perceived risk: its influence in perceived safety

Gated communities become increasingly popular in Poland. Right now there are around 400 gated estates and apartment houses in Warsaw, and this number probably has no match in any other European city. The long term consequences of the increased number of gated communities are highly undesirable, leading to social segregation in cities and to the destruction of the urban public space through privatization of public city realms. Urban planners and sociologists (Oliver, 2001; Putnam, 2000) demonstrated that socially homogeneous enclaves tend to undermine civic activity among inhabitants. One may, however, argue that a wall or a fence is a natural demarcation line of a neighborhood and hence it may increase place attachment among its members, create a network of neighborly relations, increase mutual trust, and facilitate activities on behalf of the residence area. This may, at least partly, compensate for the negative urban effects. One may therefore ask if gated communities are indeed communities facilitative of social life. Two studies will be presented,. Study 1. The first study was run in 2001 in three city districts of Warsaw. We compared attitudes towards residence place (place attachment), relations with neighbors, and civic engagement among inhabitants of four different types of housing. The results showed a lower level of social capital and less place attachment in gated housing estates than in other types of housing. Civic engagement among residents of gated communities was moderately low. Study 2. The second study was carried in 2007/2008. Eight gated communities located in different parts of Warsaw were matched with analogous non-gated housing estates and compared with respect to several forms of social capital, including measures of relations with neighbors, Putnam’s measures of social capital, measures of social trust and trust in institutions, and measures of bonding and bridging social capital. They were also compared with respect to their place attachment, attitudes towards gating, housing preferences, cultural and political preferences, and amount of civic engagement. The already available data show that the Warsaw gated communities are homogeneous as regards social composition. Preliminary findings show that civic involvement was higher in gated communities but that relations with neighbors were weaker than the average for Warsaw and other big Polish cities.

Water is a vital element for individuals. Nowadays, because of the degradation of its quality and the decrease in its quantity, this resource becomes a rare and invaluable food which needs to be restored and protected. In France, water is the second environmental concern after air. This increasing concern is mainly linked to the problems of water quality. In Brittany, region which encounters strong problems of pollution (particularly by nitrates and pesticides), water is a major concern, contrary to Paris and its suburbs where air is the priority. Consequently, according to the geographical, social, economic, cultural and ideological context, the perceptions, the representations and the relationships of people towards water will vary. And because of these representations are linked to practices, the use of water also will vary. Within the framework of an exploratory study, led by questionnaires in Brittany and Paris and its suburbs, we wondered about this relationship of people – water : how individuals perceive, evaluate and represent this resource according to their environment of life among other (i.e, urban vs. rural). 110 questionnaires were correctly filled and analysed (i.e., Brittany, n=74; Paris, n=36). The data collection was carried out using free words association tasks, scales of opinions and opened questions. The first data analyses were run using factorial analysis which allows to take into account the possible diversity of the standpoints towards water. The results show a representation of water very different according to the region of residence, quite obviously strongly associated to water pollution in Brittany and mainly related to the consumption in Paris and its suburbs. Furthermore, in Brittany, the responsibility of agriculture in this pollution is clearly highlighted while the responsibility of the households is minimized; these results are exaxtly reversed in Paris and its suburbs. Moreover, it appears that in urban environment water is more associated to a conceptualized resource than in rural environment where the relationship to water is more empiric. For urbans, the problem is not only mentioned at a local level but also at a global level. These results are interpreted regarding the conflicts and the stakes linked to water management, in particular in a polluted area. This survey is currently going on among different social groups (e.g., users, farmers, industrials, local authorities).

This research is dealing with the social representation of the landscape among two age groups: children (aged 8-9) and adults (men and women). In depth interviews were conducted in order to explore the interface of the psychic individual reality (cognition and feelings) and external collective reality (social norms) of the representation of the landscape in the south of France. Their content was analysed by a computer assisted method of discourse analysis. A top-down hierarchical classification was computed to create classes in which words are associated. Five classes of discourse organise the content. One is common to the whole population. It is the description of a “postcard” with the most significant aspects of the Mediterranean landscape and weather. It can be considered as the core of the social representation. Two classes are specific of children without any difference between boys and girls. They represent the changing aspects of the landscape with the seasons and more affective and behavioural contributions. The last two classes oppose the discourse of men and women. Men talk about the relationships between country and cities, rural and urban landscape, while women describe the landscape as viewed from home.

Park ritrit is the part of an exclusive author’s method of resonance creation “Resonante Cokreation” (MRC, Sibgatullina, Grussl, 2002). Park ritrit (PR, Sibgatullina ) is some kind of ecological prevention of the citizens in a big city. Moreover it is a private instrument of psychoanalytical psychotherapy. The autonomy of park ritrit in the environment of megapolis defined with the help of special procedure solitude of a person in a city park. This parking procedure hasn’t got totally distinctive character but clinical and curativeaesthetic one. The citizen isn’t moving for long distances. Being in the city and developing park ritrit he can find the sphere for disposing to creative style of thinking and psychotherapy. The creative mechanism of park ritrit is presented in natural-science and material way. It’s very important that all transformations of psychical phenomena, processes, emotional experience etc that the citizen feels happen in park ritrit by themselves. It occurs according to the nature and in cooperation with natural atmosphere without therapeutist interference. Park-ritrit is totally different from any psychotherapeutic programming. The balanced psychical conditions of megapolis’ citizen are reflected in immediate and mediate nature of the park. We’re talking about some new production of consciousness. It is: - the spatial structure of parking sphere (visual human system is promoting this) - the emotional attitude toward the nature and the form of the park (emotional human sphere is promoting this) - the rational, symbolical meaning of the park ( the objective side of the park is promoting this) - the personal, spiritual attitude to solitude (the semantic transformation of architecture, rhythms, the problems of the city into the individual philosophy of the park is promoting this) The mission of park ritrit is varied. It is the cure, the increasing quality of life among the citizens, ecological prevention. Also it includes not medical prevention such as upbringing, education, design, advertising, fitness. The form of principles of park ritrit are personal or group psychotherapy, media-course, mediatraining, fitness-training. It’s very important to the people of New York, Moscow, Rome, Berlin, Toronto and other megapolis to have ability to self-regulation of consequence of the city tensity.

The search for quality of life, particularly in cities, has been on the agenda of many researchers and municipalities in so-called post-industrial and increasingly urbanized societies since 1960s. Recently, this has led to initiatives to measure quality of life in urban areas. A major research project in measuring the quality of urban life that utilizes a model from both a conceptual and empirical perspective has been launched in metro Detroit (Marans, 2003). This project has formed the core of the “International Program of Research on Quality of Urban Life” coordinated at the University of Michigan, USA. As part of this program, parallel studies are underway in several world cities including Famagusta, N. Cyprus, a dynamic city of approximately 20,000 residents including a large segment of university students. Using face-to-face interviews, over 400 residents and students participated in this study during the summer and fall 2007. This paper presents an overview of the methodology and then reviews preliminary results from the survey including residents’ attitudes about the social-spatial environment of three different neighborhoods. The neighborhoods differ in terms of their social-spatial character and their housing types. The paper also explores the impacts of urban housing development patterns on residents’ attitudes and their satisfaction with parks and recreational facilities, their shopping opportunities, community participation and involvement, neighboring, perceptions of safety, the environment, and other city and region issues. The paper concludes with a discussion of plans for future work including contrasting neighborhood attitudes from Famagusta with neighborhood attitudes from studies in Detroit and Istanbul.

How can existing practices of solidarity be reinforced and incorporated in government projects? This analysis of solidarity among the inhabitants of hillside slums in Recife considers the applicability of the theory of the gift, based on the threefold obligation of giving-receiving-retribution, to the hillsides, where lack of infrastructure and socio-economic deficiencies may provoke tensions between the individual and the collective in relation to the environment. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: Concept of solidarity, habitat, culture and the gift; theory of the gift; functionalism, methodological individualism, marxism and the theory of social action; the legacy of Iberian colonialism in the brazilians. QUESTIONS Is the Gift Teory adequate to analyse and understand the practices of solidarity between the inhabitants of hillside slums and their relationship with the environment? What kind of practices exist in the relationship of inhabitants and neighbours and with the environment in the hill-side slums? What forms of solidarity exist in the community – tradition, memory, history of organization and mobilization? What kind of factors contribute to practices of solidarity in the relationship among neighbours and with the environment? How do practices of solidarity affect the quality of life of the hill-side slums? METHODOLOGY Quantative and qualitative analysis will be carried out, using open interviews and closed questionnaires with decision-makers, community agents and inhabitants. An ethnographical approach will be used to describe the social capital of the communities studied. The aspects to be analysed are: the forms of participation and the circumstances and themes in which the practices of the population express solidarity; initiatives associated with giving-receivingretribution; the social capital of the community; public action in the location and the definition of public spaces. The project was defended and approved with recommendations. Now I am working on the research proposal, (re)thinking and developing the theoretical framework and doing the literature review. The nature of the hillside environments and the deficiencies of public planning in providing for the common good promote practices that place dwellings at risk, but also practices of solidarity between inhabitants. Discovering the situations that promote such behaviour may help in the formulation of public policies to encourage solidarity. Supervisor: Luis de la Mora

As in other developed countries, Portugal’s tourism sector is still too dependent on natural resources consumption, being one of the biggest contributors to the country’s economy but also to its big ecological footprint. Unfortunately, the Environmental Education in this sector is too restricted to a few issues (e.g. water; energy) and mainly corporate, either excluding tourists or being ineffective in this regard. Much more can be done on this sector regarding apartments, hotels, leisure centres, restaurants, shopping areas, private transportation networks, etc. improving competitiveness against other non-sustainable projects. Following this belief, a set of studies have been developed with the support of WWF, BioRegional and a team of consultants, in order to design the first certified sustainable tourism project in Portugal. This sustainable tourism project adopted a sustainability viewpoint by considering economic, environmental and social issues together, included in the One Planet Living Principles (ruled at the time). All these aims were taken into consideration in the project’s design phase through two complementary actions: 1) structural design and 2) behavioral design. In this presentation we will focus mainly on the latter. The behavioral design consisted of a set of intervention strategies aimed to the change, promote and maintain sustainable consumption practices, put forward in the following phases (Palma-Oliveira & Gaspar de Carvalho, 2004): 1) Psychosocial diagnostic; 2) Behavioral targets definition; 3) attitudinal and behavioral change strategies development; 4) project evaluation and monitoring definition. These allowed among other things, the development of a portuguese consumer profile, characterizing their behaviors in terms of type, frequency and characteristics for example. In addition, a prediction was made about the types of users expected at the tourist site and the contexts and places they would be in. This gave rise to behavioral targets fitted to the different people and site characteristics, followed by associated behavioral change, promotion and maintenance strategies. Also, an assessment phase was defined, to assess the feasibility and practicability of the measures, and also the project’s success and impact (Gaspar de Carvalho & Palma-Oliveira, 2007). Similar projects in Portugal followed this one, which are nowadays being adapted to the sites specificities, in order to reduce Portugal's tourism ecological footprint.

The Egyptian Nubians relocated after the construction of the High Dam South of Aswan to a completely different setting, adjusted with difficulty to the new environment and changed part of it to better suit their needs. This paper deals with the issue of continuity in the pattern of lifestyle within the present Egyptian Nubian community. The study aims at seeking evidence of some continuity from previous socio-economic values, and its repercussion on their actual residential built-environments. The methodology relied on site visits to the area to detect aspects of the built-environment in general, using photographs, followed by a structured interview and measurements of the houses of the chosen random sample in one of the 33 villages that constitute the Kom-Ombo site. Results showed evidence of change with a slight continuity in some of the previously cited culturally related values.

People in urban environments often express a need to find particular places to disconnect from the everyday stress and be nourished by the tranquil and spiritual. Our cemeteries are presently helping to fill this need due to their design, vegetation, and central locations in urban environments. However, some people may not want to be confronted with the religious overtones of a cemetery. Spiritual places contributing to a meaningful cityscape of the future may need to be different from those we have today. The purpose of this paper is to present results from an interdisciplinary research study on spiritual places in the urban contemporary landscape of Sweden. The study is part of a bigger research project aiming to generate knowledge and an understanding of spontaneous places for memory and meaning in the urban landscape. Based on theories of urban sociology and landscape architecture, this project investigates which tools, artifacts, and methods that can be used to integrate such memorial places into the urban structure, as well as exploring how this could enrich the human environment by creating increased value for its inhabitants. An outcome of the research will be to gain knowledge of how new places of memory and meaning can be created in the urban landscape in a time when people are constantly moving and where different cultures interact in a way that is new to us in many aspects. Such an outcome will not only contribute to a theoretical development of the field of research, it will also help us understand diverse conceptions of what a memorial or a place of ritual is, which further may lead us to visualize and concretize how these various ideas of meaning and memorialisation may be represented in the contemporary urban landscape. By including urban and cultural sociologists, as well as a product designer and a landscape architect, we are approaching this task interdisciplinary. Research questions and methods of analysis are further developed in seminars including theologians, architects, landscape architects, sociologists and ethnologists. An aim of joint problem formulation and methodological integration permeates the project. Sketching procedures and visualizations will also be used in upcoming workshops with planners, decision makers, architects and users, to further develop the concept of memorial sites in the urban landscape. The paper will discuss the outcomes of the first two years of the project.

A city is a mixed space which contains various functions required by human beings, and corresponds to a vessel that contains the citizen's culture. Accordingly, the city essentially has public interest, and is based on the public. It is classified that well-designed and formed public space not only induces people but also brings about the affirmative effect in the urban's culture & identity and urban marketing aspect. Accordingly, there is the active discussion on the public design for the public interests that provide the participation and experience to people in every each city. As the plan for the city's place identity improvement, the interaction design has been diversely developed in the public design sector, because the public design sector has been required the new paradigm for the digital era. It means that the design must interactively give sympathy to the user's mind through all senses of human beings, escaping from giving the visual satisfaction to users. The interactive experience's acquisition process can be divided into 'Trying', 'Doing'(active experience) and 'Undergoing', 'Suffering' (passive experience). According to the passive experience and active experience, the user will gain the various experiences' result. However, in the public design sector, a verification on which experience the interaction design's development case actually provided to users is still insufficient. Accordingly, it seems to be necessary to examine a difference of user's experience in the qualitative aspect about the interactive design in the public design sector and to search the plan which grants the experience of more active value. Accordingly, this study is intended to examine the characteristics of change in the urban public design and digital era's design sector, and to analyze the interaction design cases which are formed in the actual urban public area based on it. Secondly, the study is intended to conduct the experimental research on what the quantitative and qualitative difference in the user's experience depending on the experience's acquisition method in experiencing the interaction design. The important interests of the study is focused on how the interaction design in the public design sector differently leads the acquisition method of users' active and passive experience, and which experience it provides.

The often rapid and uncontrolled urban development under economic pressure causes worldwide serious changes of landscapes and shows outstanding problems in metropolitan areas. The result is in many cases a severe reduction of inner-city parks and gardens and open spaces as well as of formerly natural or agricultural land in the urban fringes. As these spaces play an important role for ecological and social aspects in the urban ecosystem complex, the impacts of urbanization and land transformation are evident: Ecological functions - like the compensation of effects caused by the high portion of sealed surfaces, the waste heat of industry, trade, housing and transportation as well as the preservation of the urban flora and fauna biodiversity - are affected. In addition, the reduction of green and open areas leads to a decimation of recreation areas. A reasonable proceeding for investigating the different patterns of urban development and social-spatial differentiation, and therefore the land use diversity, is the selection of an urban to peri-urban gradient. This is also a common methodology for analysing biodiversity aspects, following the increase of the degree of ecosystem disturbances from the urban fringe towards the city centre. Suchlike, a transect was chosen in Buenos Aires, evaluating urban structure types, calculating the overall portions of green areas and making detailed studies of individual city districts and private spaces, focusing on six selected parks, determining them in a qualitative and quantitative way. These main results worked out for the mega-city Buenos Aires will be transferred and compared to the city of Santiago de Chile. The new challenge of this approach is the addition of social aspects to the ecological functions of green areas. Therefore it will be discussed of how the existence and quality of green and open areas influences the well-being of the people living under different social-spatial conditions. The overall goal of this working approach is to highlight the need of urban green and open spaces to guarantee urban well-being. Comparing two cities of different size can give an interesting overview of existing development patterns in Latin America.

Degree of biodiversity of farm land has been decreasing steadily over the last 50 years. Recently, government policy in the Netherlands has been directed to reverse that trend, by different means. Apart from financial regulation, which is moderately successful, experiments are undertaken to enhance voluntary actions to increase biodiversity. In our study we tested the effectiveness of commitment-making and feedback strategies in changing farmers’ nature management practices. Commitment making means that people make a formal pledge concerning their future behavior, preferably within a group of peers. Feedback increases the awareness of one’s performance and shows opportunities for improvement. In the experiment, 87 Dutch farmers were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: control, feedback only, and feedback plus public commitment. As a baseline measure, a survey was conducted in which social psychological underpinnings of nature management were assessed. Simultaneously an ecological assessment of the farmlands of participants was done, providing the ecological basis for feedback and advise to improve conditions for biodiversity. We then implemented our intervention program. Farmers in the feedback only condition received a thorough analysis of their current nature practices, along with a list of specific advices on how to improve, by mail. Farmers in the feedback plus commitment condition were invited to participate in a so-called study group in which the feedback reports were handed out to them and they were given the possibility to discuss these among themselves. They were also asked to publicly commit themselves to improve their practices. We expect farmers in the feedback plus commitment condition to show the greatest improvement compared to feedback only and control. Data to test these hypotheses are being collected at the moment and will be presented.

For some years the Municipality of Foligno has been performing different activities within the framework of territorial vegetation management. The PRG (Piano Regolatore Generale–The General town-planning scheme) has allowed detecting specific areas which integrate urban, rural and natural vegetation, such as the “Topino River Park”. In accordance with the town planning, a detailed census of hedges and tree rows has been conducted in the plain rural area using satellite technologies, with the double purpose to delineate an exhaustive description of the present vegetation and to assess the requirements of its management and protection. All cognitive elements were inserted in the SIT (Sistema Informativo Territoriale–Territory Information System) which represents an effective tool for management and planning of plant biodiversity. The geographic database allows managing the entire area using various sources of information related to: a) urban green planning (by the PRG); b) management and monitoring of the urban and rural vegetation; c) protection of natural resources and biodiversity inside the SIC. Many activities have been carried out in collaboration between the Municipality of Foligno and the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Perugia. Currently, they are in a process of elaborating Regolamento del Verde (Green Management Protocol), which will represent an important document for the Municipality, the city in general and the companies involved in urban green management. It will contain: a) a list of observing rules; b) technical files, as the basis for special contracts with different companies working in urban green management; c) codification of technical activities related to urban green management. Moreover, in collaboration with the Faculty of Agriculture of Perugia, a specific VTA (Visual Tree Assessment) file was studied in order to monitor public and private urban trees, which is integrated with the instrumental assessing decay of trees (PICUS Sonic Tomograph). The whole procedure to manage public urban green areas of the Municipality of Foligno has been recently certified (ISO 14001) and validation of the environmental declaration for the EMAS II registration has been obtained.

Fear of crime is as much a problem as crime itself in urban areas. Fear of crime has become an important issue of public concern that detracts from the quality of life and the social and economical well being (P.N. Grabosky, 1995). In transit environments also the quality of life issues and security issues are important besides traffic related safety. The transit environment includes more than the physical spot where the bus actually stops. Access to the bus stop and the area immediately surrounding the stop are generally thought to be part of the transit environment. The location of transport infrastructure and the perceived security of routes to and from the facility are a clearly key issue for concerns about crime and anti social behaviour (DOT report, UK, 2002). Previous researches on bus stops (Tucker, Lisa E., 2003; and Loukaitou- Sideris, Ligget, Iseki and Thurlow, 2001) suggest that security and feeling of well-being is affected by surrounding land use and activity patterns, the street characteristics and bus stop design. In Indian cities buses carry more than 90 percent of the people using public transport and the statistics on individual cities indicate substantial growth in bus service over a period of time (John Pucher et. al., 2004). Though most of the available studies are carried out in countries like USA and UK, similar studies have not been carried out on issues of personal security as related to design of physical environment in Indian bus stop environs. As the socio-cultural aspects of people, the pattern of usage of public transport and the mix of land use/ activities are different in Indian cities; this study seeks to examine perception of personal security in bus stop environs of Indian cities. The main objective of this research is to investigate the location aspects and the built environment characteristics of bus stop environments on the perceived personal security (fear of crime) of people while waiting in the bus stops. This study shall attempt to study the impact of various CPTED physical design strategies and micro-environment cues such as concealment, entrapment, etc. on the perceived personal security of people in bus stop environs. The investigation shall be focused on the perception of personal security as related to (i) the type of over all land use and the mix of activities of the area in which the bus stop is located; (ii) street characteristics and (iii) certain bus stop design features, in Indian context.

Historical cities/areas can not keep their concept forever. History suggests that many famous old cities had vanished away. So why/how historical cities/areas had dead? It can be guessed that natural/man-made disasters are direct causes of decline. Changing of environmental/economical environment has effects to decline of cities too. But as a viewpoint of environmental psychology, biggest risk is that citizens trough aside historical symbols as integrants of cities/areas concept (ex; cultural assets, landscape, traditional lifestyle and customs). In this situation, junked symbols can not recover by citizens after breaking by natural/man-made disasters. Not only that, during long term, junked symbols destroyed by citizens themselves. (For example, in case of Beijing, traditional housing style ” hú tòng”, hú tòng landscape”and traditional lifestyle in hú tòng rapidly.) If those symbols vanished, historical cities/areas will decline not only conceptually but physically. Conversely we can guess that the more citizens share historical concept and symbols, the more possibility of keep historical cities/areas. So it is important that urban planner (government, professionals or sometimes citizens themselves) get know-how to promoting cognizing and sharing symbols and concept among citizens (concept communication). And we guessed that tourists, they sometimes have different senses and more motivation to recognize historical area symbols than citizens, have a possibility as complements of sharing symbols and ideal cities/town concept among citizens. As remarked above, this study aimed to fallow 2 objectives in historical area of Kyoto, Japan; 1) Visualizing and comparing construction of recognizing historical symbols and concept of historical cities/areas about citizens/tourists by co-occurrence relation analysis. 2) Construction method of concept communication brought in “recognize map approach” and verification effects of method. As the result, we got follow 3 findings; a) Tourist’s recognize patterns of historical symbols had more wide variety than citizen. b) Providing information about tourist’s recognizing had effects of increase diversities and intensities of historical symbol recognize of citizens. b) ”recognize map approach” had effects of increase diversities and intensities of historical symbol recognize both citizens and tourists.

The project reported here will examine the influence of a particular environmental intervention—Home Zones (HZ) or Shared Space Streets—on the activity patterns, health and quality of life of older people. The study will measure outcome variables in a pre- and post-intervention research design. This paper reports the successes and challenges of developing and implementing multi-method research instruments for work with older people in relation to outdoor environments. The pilot study tested instruments such as pedometer use, questionnaires for measuring patterns of outdoor activities, access to outdoor spaces, perceptions of neighbourhood outdoor spaces, and perceptions of health and quality of life in two UK settings. The challenges included acquiring a robust sample size, adapting instruments and using validated psychological scales with older adults. The paper focuses on key lessons learnt to date, recommendations on use of research instruments and strategies to increase sample size.

In our condition to social being, we gradually created large cities and, in the process, we developed mechanisms to understand and to have a relationship with them. Supported in a reference from the Environmental Psychology, Geography and Architecture-Urbanism, the paper ilustres connections between: environmental characteristcs; the variation of social populational practices in time; and user perception. It is based in socio-environmental image’s concept (which amounts the notio